The Victoria Theatre’s experimental music programme is back in Halifax for 2023

Curated by internationally recognised composer, musician and songwriter Aby Vulliamy, Antidote features some of the UK’s finest musicians and performers.

The programme for 2023 kicks off on Sunday 26 February with Leeds based Commoners Choir, a community led choir that sings powerful original songs about the world and things they feel strongly about, such as inequality, hope and politics. This sizeable ensemble will be joined by Sheffield band The Consumptives, led by formidable musician and songwriter Michael Ward Somerset, who has penned hits for Take That and Roisin Murphy. The Consumptives will share their dark yet playful, highly skilled, and totally unique stories, poetry, and music, in which audiences are invited to think and engage with all sorts of subjects, leaving us with more questions than answers. The event, which is titled Voicing Dissent: Musical Protestations, will be an evening of socially engaged, community-spirited music that aims to challenge our understanding of live music, ourselves, and the environment we live in. With tickets at just £10, this is a great opportunity to witness some truly remarkable and original musicians and have a unique cultural and socially conscious experience.

The next event in the series, on Sunday 6 March is curated by local artist, musician, and writer Andy Abbot, who will be collaborating with Aby Vulliamy under the name ADRA Ensemble, which will feature expanded versions of Andy instrumental compositions for baritone acoustic guitar, combined with the multi-instrumental talent of Aby. Joining them will be imaginative, multi-instrumentalist Slovenian folk/rock trio Širom. More than a dozen instruments can be found in the repertoire of Iztok Koren, Samo Kutin and Ana Kravanja and at least as many given musical forms that can be perceived as an inspiration behind the character of this ensemble. Širom’s music is contemplative and an original, stylistically homogeneous form of expression that oscillates between a wide array of folk sounds and contemporary acoustic rock-style meditations.

Antidote is a programme of artistes that see things from a slightly different point of view, for audiences who like to challenge their understanding of live music.