Using Cubase Elements, I recorded the MIDI sent from one of the songs in the MOXF (enabled record in Cubase and then set the MOXF to play the song).  All 16 parts were captured on a single MIDI track.  Then I ran a MIDI > Dissolve Part from Cubase and selected the “Separate Channels” Option.  That resulted in Cubase building 16 separate tracks Apparently, the data was tagged with 16 separate channels designations. 

Is there a way to first initialize 16 tracks within Cubase, designating each to a separate channel, and then play and record the MOXF into those 16 channels without having to dissolve them in a separate step from a single, consolidated track into separate channels?

Yeah, you can create and save a template with 16 MIDI tracks that’s listening to one channel each.
One of the templates that comes with Cubase may even be one just like that.

I have a template myself with 5 MIDI tracks and the MoXF VST as target along with a few audio tracks as my starting project.

I never thought to consider using the 16-track VST template.  I’ll give that a try.  Thanks, zpink