Three Choirs Festival

The Three Choirs Festival has appointed a new Chair to their Board of Directors – Naomi Belshaw becomes the first woman Chair in the Festival’s history. Naomi is taking the place of Dr Timothy Brain OBE who, during a significant tenure as Chair, has seen the professionalisation of the organisation and vital modernisation of The Three Choirs Festival. Thought to be the longest-standing classical music festival in the world, it celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2015. The festival and its Board are extremely grateful to Timothy for all his work in the last decade, having been involved as Gloucester City Committee Chair and Chair of the Festival Board for many years.

Naomi Belshaw has worked in various roles across the music industry, including as Classical Account Manager for PRS for Music, Grants and Programmes Manager for PRS Foundation, and PR Executive and PR Manager at WildKat PR. She has a wealth of experience across a broad range of areas within the arts, including funding, publishing, licensing, royalties, PR and marketing. She also owns her own consultancy business, Naomi Belshaw Consultancy, offering advice on career strategy and direction for composers and artists.

Naomi steps up to the role of Chair as the festival announces a brand-new website, and with 4 weeks to go until priority booking opens for the Hereford 2022 festival. Full details of the festival’s exciting programme will be available online from 25 March onwards, but preview details of the evening Cathedral concerts can be found at https://3choirs.org/news/2021-festival-programme-preview.

In other Board news, David Whelton steps down from the Board of Directors and Dr Dominic Horne, Chair of the Three Choirs Festival Society, steps into the role of Vice-Chair of the festival. Katherine O’Carroll is also newly appointed to the Board from the Three Choirs Festival Society. This leaves two Board positions that the festival will be recruiting for in the coming months, with further details to be announced.

Dr Alexis Paterson, Three Choirs Festival Chief Executive, said: ‘I’m looking forward to working with Naomi as we plan for some exciting and ambitious projects at Three Choirs over the coming years. Naomi brings a wealth of experience and expertise to a board and organisation optimistic about the future and committed to ensuring the festival’s long-term impact for local communities. I’m grateful to Timothy for his dedication to the festival during my time as CEO and before, particularly in helping to bring about the successful merger of the three separate Three Choirs charities into a single unified organisation.’

Naomi Belshaw, Three Choirs Festival Chair, said: ‘I am honoured and delighted to be taking up the position of Chair of the Three Choirs Festival. The festival has such an amazing musical heritage, with fantastic, dedicated staff and volunteers bringing world-class music to the cathedral cities of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester for more than 300 years. As a keen advocate for living composers and classical music in my professional work, the role the Three Choirs Festival has played in past, present, and what I see in the future as it modernises, is hugely important to the future of classical music.