Three Choirs Festival is their cathedral's turn to host the festival) are Geraint Bowen (Hereford), Adrian Partington (Gloucester) and Peter Nardone (Worcester). The festival, originally held over two days in September (but also held in September in 1933 and 1947, since C. S. Lewis's brother Warren is known to have attended), is one of the world's oldest classical choral music festivals. Publicity for it in 1719 addressed "Members of the yearly Musical Assembly in these parts". Its music obviously tended towards the ecclesiastical. In early gatherings, Purcell's setting of the "Te Deum" and "Jubilate" was a regular part of the repertoire until 1784,
Worcester Cathedral dates from the 10th century and the time of St Oswald, Bishop of Worcester. The community associated with the cathedral the early eighth century included members of various clerical orders. The cathedral community was regulated along formal monastic lines as a consequence of the Benedictine reforms in the second half of the tenth century (one author gives the time range 974-977, another considers 969 more likely). There is an important connection with Fleury Abbey in France, as Oswald, bishop of Worcester from 961 to 992, was professed at Fleury and introduced the monastic rule of Fleury to the monastery that