Worcester 2024

Samuel Hudson
Credit: Michael Whitefoot

Music that's out of this world

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the 2024 Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. One of the principal themes of this year’s festival is the natural world, at a time when the challenge of protecting and preserving our planet is relevant to us all. There are many varied compositions inspired by our Earth’s landscapes and seascapes, and an increasing number which highlight our responsibility to protect and preserve it. This theme also extends into our festival participation project, Nature Sings. In 2024 we mark anniversaries of some of the most celebrated composers of choral music, including Charles Villiers Stanford and Gustav Holst. Alongside them we are also delighted to celebrate the 70th birthday of the Master of the King’s Music, Judith Weir.

It is a privilege to be including a number of works by contemporary composers in the 2024 programme, with commissions by Paul Mealor and Nathan James Dearden, the English premiere of Cameron Biles-Liddell’s Yr Afon Yn Yr Awyr (The River in the Sky), and a performance of the Requiem by Worcester composer Ian Venables. The festival will then close with The Kingdom by none other than Edward Elgar, continuing something of a cycle of his large-scale oratorios over recent festivals. Among the hundreds of musicians taking to the stage over the course of the festival are members of our Festival Chorus, the Three Cathedral Choirs, the Festival Youth Choir, the Festival Voices, a myriad of soloists and guest artists, and our magnificent orchestra-in-residence, the Philharmonia. There will be organ recitals, talks and lectures, late-night concerts and family events, and our Festival Village will be a hive of activity. This diverse ecosystem is only complete with our wonderful audience, so I hope you will join us at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester this summer.

Samuel Hudson

Artistic Director for Worcester


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