• New signing De Profundis joins CORO to continue acclaimed Morales Project, with the third and fourth volumes to be released this year

•  The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, presents an album of works written by Nico Muhly for the ensemble, featuring 17 premiere recordings

• I Fagiolini concludes its Colossal Baroque series with a final volume of works by Benevoli, as well as presenting a new version of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610

• Lead, Kindly Light, the new Choral Pilgrimage album from The Sixteen introduces premiere recording by Kerensa Briggs, alongside works by Vivanco, Morales and Sir James MacMillan

• Limited edition vinyl record featuring release highlights over the past quarter century

CORO, choral music’s recording home, will celebrate its silver anniversary in 2026, marking 25 years in the business. In its anniversary year, the independent label will release seven new recordings across four principal artists: The Sixteen, I Fagiolini, The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, and new signing De Profundis. The label will also release its first vinyl celebrating highlights of its remarkable 25-year history.

The award-winning record label was founded in 2001 as one of the first independent artist-owned classical labels, and over its quarter-century history has cultivated a catalogue of over 200 titles. Launched as the record label of Harry Christophers and his celebrated ensemble, The Sixteen, CORO is the independent home for choral music, welcoming three esteemed choirs to its ranks: I Fagiolini, The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, and De Profundis. Previous ensembles under the label include the Handel and Haydn Society, who released 18 albums on CORO during Harry Christophers’ tenure as Artistic Director.

Recordings released in its silver anniversary year include tributes to the Spanish Renaissance, with De Profundis continuing the acclaimed Morales Project featuring two recordings: L’homme armé Masses in May and Missa Ave Maria in November. The Sixteen follows suit with works by Morales and Vivanco, forming the basis of the annual Choral Pilgrimage, along with a premiere recording of Kerensa Briggs’ Lead, Kindly Light.

New recordings are also plentiful this year, with the Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, presenting 17 premiere tracks by celebrated American composer Nico Muhly entitled With Eys Lift Up. Whilst Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 are well represented in the world of recording, I Fagiolini presents a historically informed reimagining, in a new pitch in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the ensemble. In 2026, I Fagiolini also marks the conclusion of the Colossal Baroque series, with a recording of two of Benevoli’s multi-choir Masses - Angelus Domini and Dum complerentur.

Cath Edwards, label manager of CORO Records, says:

“I can’t quite believe we’re celebrating 25 years! It seems like only yesterday when, in 2007, I joined what was already a thriving enterprise. It has been my immense privilege to have been part of the ongoing success and development of the label, none of which would have been possible without our incredible artists and their visionary leaders – The Sixteen and Harry Christophers, I Fagiolini and Robert Hollingworth, The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Mark Williams and now De Profundis and Mark Dourish. I’m so excited about 2026 and the coming years on the label and being able to bring even more amazing choral music to our audiences, highlighting treasures from the last 500 years as well as championing our brilliant contemporary composers.”

Harry Christophers, founder of The Sixteen and CORO Records, says:

“CORO was founded as an extension of The Sixteen’s artistic vision: a way to record music on our own terms, with the same care, integrity and sense of discovery that underpin everything we do in performance. Over the past 25 years, the label has grown beyond anything I could have imagined, yet at its heart remains The Sixteen’s commitment to bringing choral music — from the Renaissance to the present day — to life with clarity, passion and purpose. In more recent years, it has been a real privilege to bring new artists to the label – several who have connections with myself and The Sixteen. To mark this anniversary with recordings that reflect our long-standing love of early music alongside new commissions and premieres feels particularly meaningful, and I am enormously proud of what CORO, The Sixteen and our extended family continue to achieve together.”

CORO’s 2026 releases are as follows -

Arise my love – Music for the Break of Day

The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford / Mark Williams

Release: 9 January

Spanning 500 years from the exquisite simplicity of Thomas Tallis’ perfect miniature O nata lux through Britten’s jubilant Festival Te Deum to Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s majestic O come let us sing unto the lord, this album celebrates the hope and anticipation that comes with the beginning of a new day.

Arise my love perfectly complements Magdalen’s first album on CORO, Peace I leave with you, which celebrates music written for the end of the day.

Track listing:

JACKSON To Morning

PURCELL O God, thou art my God

TALLIS O nata lux

FRANCES-HOAD O come let us sing unto the Lord

BRAY Winter is past

DYSON Benedicite in F

BRITTEN Festival Te Deum

AMNER Come let’s rejoice

TAVENER As one who has slept

WALTON Jubilate Deo

STAINER How beautiful upon the mountains

SHEPPARD Haec dies

LEIGHTON God’s Grandeur

WEIR Vertue

FINZI Welcome, sweet and sacred feast

DOVE Ecce beatam lucem

WHITBOURN Arise my love

Lead, Kindly Light – The Choral Pilgrimage 2026

The Sixteen / Harry Christophers

Release: 6 March

The range of emotion covered by composers in the Spanish Renaissance is demonstrated beautifully in the selected works by Cristóbal de Morales and Sebastián de Vivanco that form the basis of this Choral Pilgrimage: Lead, Kindly Light.

Plagued by illness throughout his life, Morales suffered moments of great disappointment and misery, which is made more poignant by the quality of his music. Sadness to great rejoicing is exemplified in the beautiful yet highly impassioned setting of Jacob’s lament for his two sons, Joseph and Benjamin (Lamentabatur Jacob) and his ebullient motet rejoicing in peace, Jubilate Deo omnis terra.

While Morales spent time in Rome, Vivanco remained in Spain all his life. The walled city of Ávila came to be the birthplace of three distinguished figures, not only the mystic, Teresa of Ávila, but also two highly revered composers, one the internationally renowned Tomás Luis de Victoria, and the other less well known but extremely talented, Vivanco. His sumptuous 8-part Magnificat, lively and brilliantly scored, and the exotic 9-part Caritas Pater est are testament to that.

The mysticism of Teresa of Ávila echoes in the words of St John Henry Newman, a figure whose philosophy and faith has reverberated through the Choral Pilgrimage in recent years. His writings represent a rich and thought-provoking legacy, which is reflected in Kerensa Briggs’ Lead, Kindly Light and Sir James MacMillan’s Nothing in Vain – commissioned by the Genesis Foundation for The Sixteen in 2021.

The Sixteen’s Choral Pilgrimage 2026 will tour across the UK, visiting over 20 locations, beginning at Southwell Minster (16 April) and finishing at Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh (17 October). Lead, Kindly Light will also be released on the CORO label featuring the programme from the 2026 Choral Pilgrimage.

Track listing:

VIVANCO Christus factus est pro nobis

MORALES Jubilate Deo omnis terra

MORALES Emendemus in Melius 

VIVANCO O quam suavis est, Domine a4  

VIVANCO Assumpta est Maria a6

MORALES Exaltata est sancta Dei Genitrix a6  

MORALES Gaude et laetare Ferrariensis civitas

MORALES  Lamentabatur Jacob a5 

BRIGGS Lead, kindly light*

VIVANCO Caritas Pater est a9  

VIVANCO Magnificat Octavi toni

MACMILLAN Nothing in Vain

* Premiere recording

Orazio Benevoli – Missae Angelus Domini & Dum complerentur

I Fagiolini / Robert Hollingworth

Release: 3 April

Two multi-choir masses from mid-17th-century Rome (one for Easter, the other one based on Palestrina's motet for Pentecost) complete I Fagiolini's tribute to the 'lost' music of Orazio Benevoli as part of the choir’s Colossal Baroque series. Maestro of the cappella giulia at St Peter's, Rome, Benevoli's mastery of surround sound is clear in these very different works.  The sheer quality of his music shines through and, sung by a group at the height of their powers, changes our view of 17th-century multi-choir music.

Track listing:

GRANDI Plorabo die ac nocte

BENEVOLI Missa Angelus Domini *

PALESTRINA Dum complerentur dies Pentecostes

BENEVOLI Missa Dum complerentur *

* Premiere recording

Morales – Vol III (L’homme armé Masses  |  Magnificat secundi toni)

De Profundis / Robert Hollingworth

Release: 1 May

The anonymous L'homme armé tune was widely used in 15th- and 16th-century Europe as structural and melodic inspiration for composers to base their masses on. The reason for its enduring appeal is not really understood but its catchy melody and the evocative, martial theme was clearly appreciated by composers from Dufay to Carissimi. De Profundis continues its Morales Project with two very different but equally exquisite Masses on this melody, alongside his spectacular Magnificat secundi toni.

Track listing:

MORALES L’homme armé (Phrygian Mode)

MORALES Missa L’homme armé a4

MORALES Magnificat secundi toni           

MORALES L’homme armé (Ionian Mode)

MORALES Missa L’homme armé a5

Nico Muhly – With Eys Lifts Up

The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford / Mark Williams

Release: 15 May

Nico Muhly and choristers from The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford. Photo by Hugh Warwick. 

With Eys Lift Up, is a collection of work by Nico Muhly written for, and primarily commissioned by, Magdalen College, Oxford and Informator Choristarum, Mark Williams, comprising music for standard time – a mass, a set of canticles, and anthems for general music - as well as music keyed to Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascensiontide, and Trinity Sunday. This collection was devised by Williams and Muhly as a large cycle of sacred music to be written and performed between 2021 and 2025.

Nico Muhly, composer of With Eys Lift Up, says: “I found the slow process of writing multiple shorter works quite moving; being embedded in the choir meant that I truly got to know how their voices work in that space, and how Mark’s technique both in performance and rehearsal translates to a style unique to that choir.

Something I love about writing sacred music with children and older students is the fragile but meaningful continuity across the years. Probationers turn into leavers, undergraduates move overseas and take jobs in finance, deps float in and out. The music-making is itself part of a larger story both technical (music having been made on that site since 1480) and sacred: the larger concerns of how music and liturgy work hand-in-hand to create an architecture for reflection and pause.

I’m enormously proud of this collection of music, and so grateful for Mark and all the fine musicians on this recording.”

Track listing:

MUHLY With Eys Lift Up*

MUHLY A great stone

MUHLY Alma redemptoris mater*^

MUHLY When All is Endid Fully*^

MUHLY This Other Spring*^

MUHLY Thi Goyng Out*

MUHLY One Star*

MUHLY On All Things*^

MUHLY The Quiet Stars*^

MUHLY What shall be after him?*

MUHLY An Habitation of Thy Love*

MUHLY Missa Brevis – Kyrie*^

MUHLY Oculi Omnium*^

MUHLY Missa Brevis – Gloria*^

MUHLY Magdalen Service – Magnificat*^

MUHLY Missa Brevis – Sanctus & Benedictus*^

MUHLY Magdalen Service – Nunc Dimittis*^

MUHLY Missa Brevis – Agnus Dei*^

* Premiere recording

^Commissioned by The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford

Monteverdi – Vespers of 1610

I Fagiolini / Robert Hollingworth

Release: 4 September

Monteverdi specialists I Fagiolini and Robert Hollingworth have waited until their 40th birthday to record the 1610 Vespers.  This is a lifetime's work with every nuance of drama and colour brought out in this one-to-a-part performance.  The historically informed recording features a higher organ pitch (known at the time as mezzo tuono, with a brighter & 'made to match' cornetto and sackbut sound) and a more Renaissance approach to the characterful time changes.

Track listing:

MONTEVERDI Vespers of 1610

Morales – Vol IV (Missa Ave Maria  |  Missa Si bona suscepimus   |   Magnificat tertii toni)

De Profundis / Eamonn Dougan

Release: 6 November

The male-voice polyphonic choir De Profundis continues its acclaimed survey of the Masses and Magnificats of Cristóbal de Morales. In Volume IV it presents Morales’ Missa Ave Maria, Missa Si bona suscepimus, and the Magnificat tertii toni.

Morales was regarded as a master by his contemporaries – “the light of Spain in music” (Juan Bermudo) - and was the first Spanish composer to garner an international reputation. He wrote music of sublime nobility and powerful expression that deserves to be as well-known as that of Tomás Luis de Victoria.

The De Profundis Morales Project is supported by the Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica (Madrid) and the Centre Européen de Musique (Paris).

 Track listing:

MORALES Ave Maria (chant)

MORALES Missa Ave Maria

MORALES Magnificat tertii toni

MORALES Si bona suscepimus

MORALES Missa Si bona suscepimus