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Artistic Director, Samuel Hudson has chosen the environment to be the theme of the 2024 Three Choirs Festival, which is to be held in the city of Worcester. Our selection of evening concerts at Worcester Cathedral include a Rossini rarity, one of Elgar’s best known works and a selection of pieces by Charles Villiers Stanford, who died 100 years ago in 1924. Born in Dublin in 1852, Stanford went on to enjoy a long and distinguished career, composing a prolific number of chamber pieces including no less than eight string quartets. We will also hear the world premiere of a new work by Jeremy Dibble based on music by Villiers, as well as two additional daytime concerts – please see our website for more information.
You can choose between one of the four night holidays, or stay for eight nights and enjoy the entire Festival. The itinerary for the 27 July departure will include a visit to The Firs in Broadheath, where Elgar was born in 1857 and to Greyfriars House and garden in Worcester, as well as Croome Court, where Capability Brown created his first fullscale landscaped park for Lord Coventry from 1756. The tour departing on 31 July will also include a visit to The Firs and to Little Malvern Court, a 14th century house with magnificent gardens and views across the Severn Valley as well as to St Wulstan’s Church to see Elgar’s grave.
We will be based in the historic Diglis House Hotel (4*), a few miles from the centre of Worcester, overlooking the River Severn. This 18th century manor was occupied for some years by the Leader-Williams family, including Edward, Chief Engineer to the Severn Navigation Commission, and friend of John Constable, and his son, Benjamin, who went on to become a respected landscape artist himself. There are 29 comfortable bedrooms, the Conservatory Restaurant and a bar with gardens and patio by the river.
...when you travel with Kirker
Andrew Biggs read Music and the History of Art at Leeds University. He has led cultural tours throughout the world for over twenty years.
Recent tours include The Metropolitan Opera & the Art Galleries of New York as well as tours to many summer music festivals in the UK including Cheltenham and Buxton Festivals. A teacher and performer, Andrew is currently Head of Prep Music at Berkhamsted School.
27 July: Three Choirs Festival Chorus
Grace Evangeline Mason: The Imagined Forest
Stanford: Stabat Mater
Holst: Hymn of Jesus
28 July: Three Choirs Festival Chorus
Nathan James Dearden: Premiere of a new work by the young Welsh composer and commissioned by The Festival.
Judith Weir: Still, Glowing
Respighi: The Birds – suite for small orchestra (1920)
Holst: The Cloud Messenger. This magisterial work was composed in 1903 and waited for many years for its first performance.
29 July: Three Choirs Festival Chorus
Camron Biles: Liddell Yr Afon YnYr Awyr - First performance in England
Judith Weir: O Sweet Spontaneous Earth
Sarah Kirkland Snider: Mass for the Endangered
This work by the American composer born in 1973 was commissioned by Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York City.
30 July: BBC Singers
Kristina Arakelyan: Seascapes interspersed by Benjamin Britten: Four Sea Interludes and transcribed by Anna Lapwood. Kristina Arakelyan was born in Armenia and came to London to study at the Purcell School at the age of 11.
Poulenc: Figure Humaine FP120
A cantata for Double Mixed Choir of 12 voices and first performed in London in 1945 by the BBC Chorus.
Judith Weir: In the Land of Uz. This work was first performed at Southwark Cathedral during the 2017 Proms by the BBC Singers with tenor Adri.
31 July: Three Choirs Festival Chorus
Rossini: Petite messe solennelle
The work was first performed at a private concert in Paris on 24 March 1864 and performed in public, also in Paris, in 1869, a year after the death of Rossini.
1 August: Three Cathedrals Choir
Programme includes two works by Stanford – The Blue Bird and Three Motets together with The Angry Planet by Bob Chilcott, first performed at The Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester in 2018.
2 August: Three Choirs Festival Youth Choir
Requiem by Ian Venables commissioned by The Bach Choir and first performed at The Proms in 2012 and the world premiere of Sonata for String Orchestra by Stanford and the musicologist, Jeremy Dibbles.
3 August: Three Choirs Festival Chorus
Elgar: The Kingdom. One of Elgar’s most loved works, which received its first performance at the Birmingham Music Festival on 3 October 1906.
Tour leader
Andrew Biggs read Music and the History of Art at Leeds University. He has led cultural tours throughout the world for over twenty years.
Recent tours include The Metropolitan Opera & the Art Galleries of New York as well as tours to many summer music festivals in the UK including Cheltenham and Buxton Festivals. A teacher and performer, Andrew is currently Head of Prep Music at Berkhamsted School.
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