Interesting to read in the Church Times that London’s Southwark Cathedral invited a renowned LGBTQ+ chamber choir is to give its first ever performance in a cathedral, a week ago to mark the start of Pride month.
The Fourth Choir, so called because there were already three LGBT choirs in London, presented a programme called “A Requiem for Those Who Had None”, to commemorate thousands of people all over Europe who were sentenced to death for being in gay relationships between the 12th and 19th centuries.
The programme included the Requiem by the Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, a setting of the Lamentations by Dominique Phinot, himself executed for “homosexual practices” in 1556, music by the recently rediscovered Italian nun Raffaella Aleotti and the contemporary New York-based trans composer Michael Bussewitz-Quarm.
Dean of Southwark, the Very Revd Mark Oakley, said: “It’s easy to forget that, for many years, LGBT people in this country and across Europe were executed for their identity, who they were, and who they loved.”
Read the story in the Church Times here. Learn more about The Fourth Choir here.