ORA is made up of some of the UK’s finest consort singers, sitting to my ears somewhere between The Sixteen and Tenebrae…The melancholy severity of Byrd’s original is beautifully measured, ORA supplying some of the flexibility and relish for the unfolding harmonies I sometimes miss from The Sixteen’s recording … I’ll be listening eagerly to see if volume 2 is done with such a sure touch.

ORA has taken as the starting point for its first album the glorious perfection of William Byrd’s polyphony, sung here with equal perfection … This CD is superb and together with these exemplary performances should receive many accolades.

Even if one already possesses one or more versions of Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices – and it is a work which invites and can bear any number of interpretations – it is well worth owning the disc under review, to hear the Mass in this accomplished performance by ORA in the company of some outstanding modern compositions which respond to it…be tempted, give in

Set against the blanched purity of a group such as The Tallis Scholars, ORA's tone is more off-white - chill taken off by the character in these youthful voices. Digby's direction is about as interventionist as you can get in this repertoire without being mannered...Six premieres give this disc plenty of musical meat but what's surprising is the near-unanimity of the new works' sound worlds.

Only those lovers of Byrd for whom mingling the old and new is anathema can fail to be impressed by this new recording. Others should not hesitate. I hope that this album succeeds as it deserves to do and look forward with interest to the forthcoming sequels

Byrd’s great Mass for Five Voices provides the impetus for five of the six new commissions here, and it’s given complete and in sequence on the recording in a well-balanced and lovingly shaped performance of superb clarity which reveals every inner detail that the contemporary composers later take up and develop in their homages...for me it was Alexander L’Estrange’s Show me, deare Christ that made the biggest impact.

In bold projects like this, the ever-reliable English choral tradition is renewed again.

immaculate performances … Panufnik’s ethereal Kyrie features intense harmonic shifts and long lines seamlessly delivered by the singers … Brilliantly showcased by ORA, all the new works should be snapped up for performance by other choirs.

a musical comet … you’ll go a long way to hear singing this good. Truly, this is British choral music’s new golden age.