Farm Street Church, a Catholic Jesuit church in Mayfair, is hosting a choral concert on Saturday 5 April commemorating those in the LGBTQ+ community who have lost their lives for being in same-sex and queer relationships.

Entitled 'A Requiem for Those Who Had None', the concert will interweave music and stories, performed by LGBTQ ensemble The Fourth Choir. The programme of works will include Herbert Howell's Requiem, extracts of Alonso Lobo's Lamentations of Jeremiah and contemporary works by Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, Gabriel Jackson and Jake Runestad.

The choir will read the stories of martyrs of the LGBTQ community from the 14th to 19th century, beginning with Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer Dominique Phinot who was put to death for 'homosexual practices' in 1556, and Richard Arnold, an innkeeper, and William Crutchard, a footman, who were arrested after spending the night together in an inn and subsequently hanged together in public on 13 September 1753.

The Fourth Choir is London's LGBTQ + chamber choir for advanced singers. The group performs a wide range of repertoire and focuses on celebrating identity, raising awareness for LGBTQ people and commissioning queer composers.

Farm Street Church is home to the LGBT+ Catholics Westminster and hosts a monthly LGBT mass on the second and fourth Sundays of the month. The official teaching of the Catholic Church, found in the Catechism, states that ‘[LGBT+ People] are to be accepted with sensitivity, compassion and respect. Any form of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.’

But the Catholic church, in its doctrine, rejects same-sex marriage and condemns any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as 'intrinsically disordered' and that 'homosexual persons are called to chastity.' Pope Francis has come out on the side of same-sex relationships since his papacy began in 2013, and has favoured granting legal protections to same-sex couples as an alternative to endorsing gay marriage, as well as allowing priests to bless same-sex couples in 2023.

The Fourth Choir's Creative Producer Séamus Rea spoke of discovering Phinot's story: 'I was researching the composer Dominique Phinot as we are singing a piece by him at the Wigmore Hall on June 27 and I was shocked to find him mentioned in an article on Wikipedia called "List of people executed for homosexuality in Europe”. I was even more shocked when I scrolled through the article to find hundreds and hundreds of names listed, many revealing heartbreaking stories in the brief details given.

'These people are an important part of LGBT+ history and I knew nothing about them,' continued Rea. 'They had died in disgrace, but we wanted to honour them so we came up with the idea of giving them the Requiem that they had never had. We wanted to commemorate not only their terrible deaths but to celebrate the love for which they had paid the ultimate price.'

A Requiem For Those Who Had None performed by The Fourth Choir is a Farm Street Church on Saturday 5 April at 7:30pm. thefourthchoir.com