Kantos Chamber Choir: The Witch Trials

Led by conductor Ellie Slorach, Kantos Chamber Choir presents a powerful evening of music and spoken word inspired by the Lancashire Witch Trials of 1612.

This evocative programme reflects on persecution, injustice, and human nature—issues that still resonate today.

The concert features Spells, Remedies and Potions by Camden Reeves—a bold and dramatic new work described as “Black Sabbath and Metallica for sopranos”—alongside sacred works by Allegri, Byrd, Palestrina, and Hildegard von Bingen. Interwoven throughout are trial texts and a moving arrangement of Barbara Strozzi’s Che si può fare? by Slorach, as well as Rory Wainwright Johnston’s contemporary Ave Maria.

This immersive and emotionally charged experience invites audiences to confront a dark chapter in British history through a lens that is both historical and painfully present.

Programme:

• Anonymous: Gregorian Plainchant
• Gregorio Allegri: Miserere
• Carlo Gesualdo: O vos omnes
• William Byrd: Ave Maria
• Barbara Strozzi, arr. Ellie Slorach: Che si può fare?
• Rory Wainwright Johnston: Ave Maria
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Sicut cervus
• Camden Reeves: Spells, Remedies and Potions – The Pendle Witch Trials
• Hildegard von Bingen: Quia ergo femina

Performers:
Ellie Slorach – conductor
Kantos Chamber Choir

The Inspirational Artists series is generously supported by The Haworth Trust.