222 Studia Liturgica – Volume 46 (2016) – Numbers 1–2 SL 46 (2016) 222-242 Turning East. Turning Exit? Turning to the Music! Spatial Practice in Choral Evensongs in the Netherlands HANNA RIJKEN*, MARTIN J.M. HOONDERT**, MARCEL BARNARD 1 *** INTRODUCTION S ince the 1980s, increasingly more choral evensongs have been organized in the Netherlands, outside of the context of the Anglican Church. Te evensongs attract a lot of people. Sometimes these performances are ‘staged’ as a (mostly reformed) worship, sometimes as a concert, or as a worship and a concert at the same time. Most evensongs are performed in monumental churches, which have been ‘dispositioned’ due to the sixteenth century Reformation. Te changed altered disposition of the inside of these churches has considerable consequences for the spatial practice of the evensongs. Te popular practice of choral evensongs, in a highly secularized country such as the Netherlands, draws our attention. In this article the central focus is on the spatial dimension of choral evensongs in the Netherlands. We will compare the * Hanna Rijken is a theologian and musician, and a PhD student at the Protestant Teological University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. ** Martin J.M. Hoondert serves as assistant professor of “Music, Religion, and Ritual” at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. *** Marcel Barnard serves as professor of Practical Teology/Liturgical Studies at the Protestant Teological University Amsterdam, the Netherlands, VU University Amsterdam and Stellenbosch University. 1 Te article is part of the PhD-research project ‘‘My soul doth magnify’. Te Appropriation of the Anglican Choral Evensong in the Dutch Context’ that is embedded in the Research Program ‘Practices of faith in socio-cultural networks’ of the Protestant Teological University Amsterdam. Te frst author of the article is the main investigator of the project. She gathered the data and analyzed them. Te analysis of the data was inter-subjectively assessed by the co-authors, who are also the supervisors of the research project.