Three Choirs Festival launches 2023 programme

The Three Choirs Festival has today launched its programme for 2023. The festival, which will run from 22 and 29 July in venues across Gloucester will host 21 premieres within a programme of over 60 events from choral-orchestral concerts, solo recitals, chamber concerts and family events including the debut of new choir, the Three Choirs Festival Voices.

In an expansion of the festival’s community participation work in the regions of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, the Festival Voices is an alternative to the festival’s Festival Chorus, with singers not requiring an audition or rigorous rehearsal schedule. This year, the new choir will perform Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs and Graham Fitkin’s The Age of Aspiration in Gloucester Cathedral.

Artistic director Adrian Partington said: ‘The 2023 Gloucester Three Choirs Festival is all about innovation. Most importantly, a new ‘all-comers’ chorus has been established which will make its debut during the week; there will be a new Opening Celebration in the City, to try and engage with people who would not normally come to the festival; and there will be lots of new music performed during the week, much of it by female composers, including all three of this year’s festival commissions.’

The festival will continue celebrations of Vaughan Williams’ 150^th birthday with performances of his works including Sancta Civitas, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and The Pilgrim’s Progress plus the festival’s 2023 outreach project What the Lark Saw. Three Choirs will also explore new music with premiere performances of works by composers including Eleanor Alberga, Ronald Corp, Liz Lane, Nilufar Habibian and Randall Svane.

Tickets for Three Choirs Festival members go on sale from 3 April, with general booking opening on 26 April. You can find out more about opportunities to get involved through the Three Choirs Festival Voices, Festival Chorus or Youth Choir here.