Christopher Roberts, formerly head of Universal Music Group’s Classics and Jazz Division, promoted Sting’s entree into the classical genre. The crossover led to such acclaimed titles for the artist as Songs from the Labyrinth, a 2006 collection of lute music inspired by the songs of Elizabethan composer John Dowland, published on Universal Music’s Deutsche Grammophon label. Christopher Roberts served as the executive producer on Sting’s popular album If on a Winter’s Night, on which the artist covered medieval Christmas carols and pieces by illustrious later composers.

1. A Look at Sting’s Explorations of
Classical Music
By Christopher Roberts, Universal
Music

2. Introduction
• Christopher Roberts, formerly head of Universal
Music Group’s Classics and Jazz Division, promoted
Sting’s entree into the classical genre. The crossover
led to such acclaimed titles for the artist as Songs
from the Labyrinth, a 2006 collection of lute music
inspired by the songs of Elizabethan composer John
Dowland, published on Universal Music’s Deutsche
Grammophon label. Christopher Roberts served as
the executive producer on Sting’s popular album If
on a Winter’s Night, on which the artist covered
medieval Christmas carols and pieces by illustrious
later composers.

3. Sting
• Sting received widespread praise for Songs from the
Labyrinth, the first of several albums he would issue
based on or influenced by classical sources. He followed
it up in 2007 with The Journey and the Labyrinth, which
incorporated seven of the Dowland pieces he used in the
first album. Reviewers also loved 2010’s Synchronicities,
which transformed a dozen of his iconic songs—
“Roxanne” and “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
among them—into works for orchestra. Accompanied by
the New York Chamber Consort, the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra, and the London Players, Sting beautifully
recast rock as classical in a way that honored the identity
of both forms.