Oeuvre: Stella caeli

Matching ties. Sharp suits. As they strode onto Cadogan Hall's stage, New York Polyphony were already living up to their image, one hand-tailored to New York's intellectual, social-media savvy hipsters. It wasn't long before they proved that style went hand-in-hand with substance, in a programme outstanding in vocalism and musicality.

Generally when we think of the first great flowering of English church music, our minds go to the giants of the Tudor age – Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons and their contemporaries. But as we learned this evening in the company of the Orlando Consort, the rich tradition of English choral music has even earlier origins, back in the priories of the Middle Ages.