Herbert Sumsion host cities, along with Worcester and Hereford, of the Three Choirs Festival, an annual festival of choral emphasis first held in the early 18th century. Sumsion would later write of his musically formative experiences at the cathedral: ‘Quite soon after my entry into the choir I was singing with the [Three Choirs] Festival Chorus and gradually absorbing the choral music of the great classical composers and the contemporary writers, of whom the giant was certainly Elgar.' When Sumsion’s treble voice broke at age 15, he became an ‘articled pupil’ to Brewer, a designation connoting a three-year apprenticeship in organ, choral
Worcester Cathedral he established at Worcester around the year 966, which was dedicated — as the present cathedral church is — to St. Mary. The last Anglo-Saxon bishop of Worcester, Wulstan, unusually remained bishop after the Norman Conquest until his death in 1095. He was later made a saint. The Priory Cathedral was a major landowner and economic force, both in Worcester and the county. Its properties for instance included the priory manor of Bromsgrove. It was a centre of learning and provided schooling. It was associated with hospitals. The Church received a portion of local taxations and ecclesiastical law applied to