Event Details

Lancaster Arts welcomes Kantos Chamber Choir to the Great Hall for the very first time, with an evening that combines choral music and spoken word, inspired by the lives and imaginations of one of literature’s most extraordinary families.

‘I read for the same reason that I ate or drank; because it was a real craving of nature.’

Seen through the eyes of their friend and champion, Elizabeth Gaskell, audiences are transported to the windswept Yorkshire moors. Here Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë wrote stories filled with desire, devotion, depravity and despair, challenging the social expectations and constraints placed upon women of their time.

Elizabeth Gaskell specialist, Dr Sherry Ashworth, joins Kantos as co-curator and presenter for this unique performance.

We are delighted to offer a pre-concert discussion between Dr Sherry Ashworth and Ellie Slorach (Creative Director - Kantos Chamber Choir) about how this programme came together. The pre-show conversation will begin at 7.30pm, with the performance from 8-9pm.

Concert Programme

Helen Neeves - Speak of the North!

Words by Elizabeth Gaskell

John Ireland - The Hills

Words from Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë & Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

Tõnu Kõrvits - The Night is Darkening Round Me

Poem by Emily Brontë & Words by Elizabeth Gaskell

Amy Beach - Peace I Leave With You

Words from Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

Helena Paish - Life Gerald

Finzi - My Spirit Sang All Day

Words from Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

Trad. arr. Charlie Perry - Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair

Words from Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë

Sophie Nolan - Ira Vos Totos Consumet

Words from Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë

Cecilia McDowall - Snow

No coward soul is mine – Emily Brontë

Words by Elizabeth Gaskell

Robert Pearsall - Lay a Garland

Words by Elizabeth Gaskell

John Tavener - Funeral Ikos

I’m Happiest When Most Away – Emily Brontë

Words by Charlotte Brontë

Toby Hession - She Walks in Beauty

Words from Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

Joan Szymko - Finding Her Here

'a gripping hour of storytelling genius'

aAh! Magazine