One of the stalwart features of the Winnipeg Baroque Festival over the last few years has been the Choral Evensong contributed by All the King’s Men. The resident choir of St. John’s College at the University of Manitoba is preparing a slightly different offering with their evensong this year as they focus on a single composer.  

With the help of the instrumental ensemble Fidem in Fidibus and organist Lottie Enns-Braun, the choir will share an evening comprised solely of the music of Orlando Gibbons. The Cambridge-based composer was steeped in the court music of King James I, working at the Chapel Royal and, eventually, as organist at Westminster Abbey. 

“We decided to focus on Gibbons this year because he contributed so much to the new reformed English Church of the 17th century,” says Charles Horton, conductor of All the King’s Men, highlighting the composer’s use of the English language as opposed to Latin and the use of the then-new King James Bible. 

An early-17th century immersion 

To properly celebrate Gibbons’ contributions to English church music, All the King’s Men will perform music as the composer himself may have written and shared it in his time. “When you come to the service, it will be as if you’re sitting in the Chapel Royal in the first 25 years of the 17th century,” Horton explains. “You’re going to get the entire experience of the music, the instructions that are in the program – what we call the rubrics – the readings, it will all be exactly what you would have heard at the time.” 

“It is not just an exposure to the music, but it’s the context of the music in a service that it would have been intended for.” 

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This immersion experience will be assisted by Fidem in Fidibus – violinist Momoko Matsumura and Tatiana Friesen, violist Jennifer Thiessen and cellist Nathaniel Froese – in a first-time collaboration for the ensemble. Along with assisting in the concert’s church music, Fidem in Fidibus will share instrumental consort music written for the court. 

Horton says that working with an ensemble like this has allowed to come at this music with a different approach than usual. “It changes the way we approach articulation,” he says, “the way we approach the shaping of line, because to play with a string ensemble using Baroque bows, Baroque tuning, Baroque articulations, you can’t help but be swept up by that.” 


 

Trans-Atlantic experience brings inspiration 

The other major inspiration for All the King’s Men as they prepare their Gibbons evensong is their most recent trip to perform in cathedrals in England. A biennial occurrence, the group’s 2025 journey saw them perform at the historic Ely Cathedral.  

“It’s an experience of knowing what it’s like to be a musician who’s on call every day, to sing services every day,” say Horton, likening it to the experience that Gibbons himself would have had. “I think traveling together and doing these services helped to bind the group together and give them a commitment to the process of what we’re involved in.” 

All the King’s Men’s Choral Evensong will take place at 7 p.m. on April 12 at the College Chapel of St. John the Evangelist. Admission is available on a pay-what-you-can basis. More information can be found at the Winnipeg Baroque Festival’s website.