In 2025 ORA Singers marked the four-hundredth anniversary of Orlando Gibbons’ death with Songs of Angels, a programme of choral music preserved in this landmark recording in its Reflections series. Here, Renaissance masterworks inspire living composers to respond in their own voices – not in imitation of Gibbons, but in dialogue with him across the centuries.

Gibbons (1583-1625) stands among the most cultivated voices of early seventeenth-century England. Born in Oxford and brought up in Cambridge, he belonged to a professional musical family: his father was a Wait (town musician), and his elder brother Edward served as Master of the Choristers at King’s College, where Orlando first sang. He remained there to take his Bachelor of Music degree in 1606, by which time he was already associated with the Chapel Royal in London. Among colleagues such as William Byrd, John Bull and Nathaniel Giles, Gibbons developed a style distinguished by clarity, balance and expressive restraint.

His First Set of Madrigals and Motets, published in 1612, established his name. The following year he joined Byrd and Bull in Parthenia, the first printed anthology of English keyboard music. He later became organist of the Chapel Royal, served as musician to Prince Charles (later King Charles I), and in 1623 was appointed organist of Westminster Abbey. The Fantasies of Three Parts for viols, published around 1620, reveal the same thoughtful workmanship found in his church music.

Gibbons’ career was cut short in June 1625 when he died suddenly of a stroke in Canterbury, attending the royal household on the arrival of Queen Henrietta Maria. He was forty-one. His widow, Elizabeth, commissioned a memorial by Nicholas Stone that still stands in Canterbury Cathedral, while their son Christopher later continued the family tradition as a composer. A decade later, Charles I ordered manuscript copies of Gibbons’ works to be made, ensuring their preservation. His music – notably the Short Service and anthems – has remained part of English cathedral life ever since, valued for its proportion, clarity and depth of feeling.

Ten full anthems by Gibbons survive, all recorded here. Two early settings, O Lord, how do my woes increase and O Lord, I lift my heart to thee, appeared in William Leighton’s Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614) and already display his gift for expressive economy. Almighty and Everlasting God, setting the Collect for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, combines simplicity with quiet eloquence, while Lift up your heads (Psalm 24) shows a more celebratory manner. Others are inward in character: O Lord, in thee is all my trust is notable for its clear text-setting, and Deliver us, O Lord (Psalm 106) moves from plea to praise, closing with an exultant Amen.

I am the resurrection and the life is among his most affecting works, its arching lines and harmonic daring anticipating a later expressiveness. Although two voice-parts are lost, David Skinner’s reconstruction restores its balance with subtlety. The six-voice O Lord, in thy wrath rebuke me not (Psalm 6) shares that emotional directness, its repeated “Lord, how long wilt thou punish me?” voiced with almost personal intensity. Nicola LeFanu’s Be still, my soul takes this anthem as its point of departure. Setting a later text by Katharina von Schlegel, she traces a similar journey from unrest to stillness, translating Gibbons’s devotional sensibility into a modern harmonic language.

Two famous anthems display Gibbons at his most public. Hosanna to the Son of David conveys the excitement of Palm Sunday through overlapping cries of welcome. Marco Galvani’s new setting of the same text echoes that vitality in fresh, open sonorities, its antiphonal writing glancing towards Gibbons’ while remaining unmistakably of our time. O clap your hands (Psalm 47), probably written for the 1622 Oxford ceremony honouring Gibbons’ colleague William Heather, is answered here by Cecilia McDowall’s reflection on the same psalm. Her rhythmic agility and interplay of voices recast the anthem’s jubilation in a contemporary idiom, retaining its spirit while transforming its gesture.

A gentler kind of reflection is found in Gibbons’ collaboration with the poet George Wither on Hymnes and Songs of the Church (1622–23). The collection was dedicated to King James I – a canny move, as it resulted in a royal warrant declaring, not without controversy, that the book had to be included with every bound volume of metrical psalms. Fourteen melodies by Gibbons, published with bass but without inner parts, were intended for devotional use; several remain familiar from later hymnals. Seven appear here in new settings. James Weeks, in Who’s this that leaning on her friend? and Arise thou North-winde, treats Gibbons’s melodies with lightness and spatial clarity, allowing the original tunes to surface within translucent choral textures. Harry Baker re-imagines five others (Songs 1, 5, 22, 34 and 44), combining choir and piano in subtle dialogue. His harmonic palette ranges from gentle warmth to quiet intensity, nowhere more moving than in The Lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan. Will Todd’s Veni Creator takes the ancient hymn as a shared point of departure, expanding Gibbons’ modal clarity into slow-moving chords of resonant colour.

Each of these reflections offers a different view of Gibbons’ art. LeFanu, Galvani, McDowall, Weeks, Baker and Todd all draw something personal from his example – his precision, his lyricism, his poise – offering music that belongs wholehearted to our own century while affirming the continuity of English choral tradition.

Songs of Angels stands, then, as both commemorative and a celebration of the new. Through ORA Singers’ performances, the music of Orlando Gibbons and his modern counterparts meets in mutual illumination. What emerges in this recording is not a ‘compare and contrast’ approach, but rather a sense of deep connection whereby the clarity, balance and expressiveness found in music written four centuries ago continues to inspire composers and move audiences today.

Dr Francis Knights

ORA Singers

The award-winning ORA Singers is recognised for its modern take on the centuries-long choral tradition, and was born out of a belief that we are in a second golden age of choral music, matching that of the Renaissance. It is one of the world’s foremost commissioners of contemporary choral music, which it often performs alongside Renaissance masterpieces in its celebrated concerts and recordings. Since its description as “a musical comet”, ORA Singers has continued to blaze a trail as one of the UK’s leading vocal ensembles. Directed by Suzi Digby OBE, the group was named Ensemble of the Year at the 2018 Opus Klassik awards, and has received critical acclaim both for its “unfailingly elegant” performances and its “superb and exciting” recordings, most recently winning the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik for their 2023 disc, Sanctissima.

Suzi Digby OBE

Conductor

Suzi Digby OBE is an internationally renowned choral conductor and music educator. Born in Japan, she lived in Hong Kong, Mexico, and the Philippines before settling in the UK. Suzi has pioneered the revival of singing in UK schools and communities, founding several national organisations, including The Voices Foundation, Vocal Futures, Singing4Success, and London Youth Choir. In 2014, she launched The Golden Bridge in California, commissioning Californian composers to ‘reflect’ English Renaissance choral works. In 2016, she founded her professional vocal ensemble, ORA Singers, which won Germany’s Opus Klassik for Best Ensemble in 2018, and more recently the prestigious Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik for their 2023 album, Sanctissima. Suzi has conducted major choral-orchestral works with ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the London Mozart Players. She was the official choral conductor for The Rolling Stones, coaching and leading choirs for their 50th Anniversary Tour. Suzi was Visiting Professor at University of Southern California for 12 years. Suzi was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2007 for her outstanding services to music education and an honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen in 2016.

Harry Baker

Piano

Harry Baker is an award-winning British pianist and arranger active at the highest levels of both jazz and classical performance. As a jazz musician, he has worked with Jamie Cullum, Misha Mullov-Abbado and others at venues including Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and King’s Place. As a classical pianist, collaborations with sopranos Fatma Said (Warner Classics), Danielle de Niese (Metropolitan Opera) and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason have led to performances at Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall and the Verbier Festival. Recent international touring highlights include the Edinburgh International Festival, Lucerne Festival and Konzerthaus Berlin.

A versatile and high-profile arranger, Harry has written for Britten Sinfonia, Jamie Cullum, the National Youth Choirs, Gabrieli, and the Jess Gillam Ensemble. In 2024, Harry made his BBC Proms debut with an hour-long programme of his arrangements of classical, jazz and pop music for Fantasia Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. Harry’s arrangements have been recorded on Decca Classics and BBC Radio 3, and published by ABRSM.

In early 2020, Harry released his debut EP, The Floating Boy, a suite for big band and voices performed by the Oxford University Jazz Orchestra and vocal group The Oxford Gargoyles. The album launch was accompanied by a feature interview in London Jazz News and was played on Jazz FM, leading presenter Helen Mayhew to comment that “the future of British jazz is in very capable hands.”

Harry is in-demand as a session musician, and has appeared on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2, in addition to BBC1&2 with choirmaster Gareth Malone. He is also a passionate advocate for music education, and tutors Jazz & Classical Analysis at the University of Oxford.