Laura Cannell - The Rituals Of Hildegard Reimagined (2024)

"The raw sounds I make in here are calling to connect across the centuries, and while I breathe into the melodies I watch the daylight flicker across the vaulted ceilings and battered oak pews, I imagine Hildegard's sacred music duetting in my head as I make my secular offering."

Exposed and raw, Laura Cannell’s latest album is an offering of contemporary minimalism to a 12th century composer, a thank you to a lost uncle and a way to process an anxiety disorder. The music feels ancient as she breaks down and reconstructs selected music by the 12th Century Polymath Hildegard von Bingen alongside her own compositions. The 12 track album is performed on bass recorders, a 12 string knee harp, delay pedal and sparse layering, conjuring a bridge to connect the centuries. The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined was improvised and recorded in single takes.

Cannell is standing by a 12th century font where animals carved in stone have been defaced, in her head she is playing alongside a woman living and composing at the time the font was built. Laura improvises on memories, on fragments of notation, stretching time, layering the thoughts and imaginings of universal life experiences. Remembering the impact that small gestures can make to another persons life, never knowing when a shared moment may re-emerge or demand to be somehow activated into sound.

“As the spring sunlight flickers through clear glass windows, it streams across vaulted stone ceilings and lights up the battered oak pews. Specks of disturbed dust become plumes of glitter and I imagine Hildegard's sacred music duetting in my head as I make my secular offering. I play her notes and mine, close, but not touching there is room to breath again.



I first heard the music of the 12th century Composer, Nun, Mystic and Herbalist, Hildegard von Bingen in about 1997. I had just left rural Norfolk to begin my undergraduate degree at London College of Music. My introduction to Hildegard was through my uncle, a Professor of Microbiology in London with a keen interest in Early Music, he played me the album 'Canticles of Ecstasy’, performed by the incredible Sequentia, (a group whose output has become hugely important to me). I had no idea that I would still be listening 25 years later, and I confess I have been 'borrowing' the CD ever since.

Hildegard's music gradually became a significant presence in my life. I revisit her music at times when I feel overwhelmed, or when I need to reset my inner musical dialogue. Sometimes the sparsity is too intense, leaving room for the darkness to make itself at home, other times, it radiates joy and gives me inspiration to create worlds within the spaces between the notes.” Laura Cannell (June 2024)


The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined was written, performed and recorded by Laura, returning to recorders (as in her 2022 album Antiphony of the Trees), it heavily features bass recorder and introduces a 12 string medieval harp tuned in unequal temperament as a counter to the fixed pitches of the recorders.

Recorded in spring 2024 in St Andrew’s Church, Raveningham, Norfolk, UK where Cannell recorded her debut solo album Quick Sparrows Over the Black Earth in 2013 (released in 2014).