Composed for a programme Conductus was performing, in St Petersburg palaces, around the idea of plagues and afflictions both ancient and modern. Likewise the music was both ancient and modern, some of it, including this Plague Songs, written especially for Conductus. For the Plague Songs, I chose seven folk songs & nursery rhymes, both English and Russian, about afflictions, pestilences and plagues associated with instances from history - interspersed with readings from literature about plagues, such as Daniel Defoe, Boccaccio, Albert Camus and others. The first and last sections are processional - the group processed in and out singing - and the middle five sections took liberties with the traditional material, decorating and re-imagining famous melodies, including, of course, Ring-A-Ring-A-Roses.