Directed by Suzi Digby OBE, the award-winning ORA Singers celebrates one of England’s finest renaissance composers, Orlando Gibbons, with a selection of his full anthems and songs from the 1623 collection, The Hymnes and Songs of the Church.

With 2025 marking the 400th anniversary of the great composer’s death, ORA Singers has commissioned 4 of the finest contemporary composers to write ‘reflections’ on his original works, with the world premieres of music from Cecilia McDowall, Will Todd, Nicola LeFanu, and Brian Current.

Five jazz-inspired arrangements of Gibbons’ hymns by pianist Harry Baker also feature, who joins ORA Singers for the performances.

Through 10 brand new verses interspersed throughout the programme, ORA Singers draw a link from the original songs of 1623 to the contemporary styles enjoyed by choirs today, ending in a brand new setting of Veni Creator. Central to the programme is Gibbon’s famed madrigal, What is our life? setting a text by Walter Raleigh written prior to his execution in 1618. This posthumous collaboration of Raleigh’s somber lament with Gibbon’s intense musical emotion resulted in a masterpiece of the English madrigalic repertoire.