Three Choirs Festival Three Choirs Festival The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held annually at the end of July, rotating among the cathedrals of the Three Counties (Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester) and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme. The large-scale choral repertoire is now performed by the Festival Chorus, but the festival also features other major ensembles and international soloists. The 2011 festival took place in Worcester from 6 to 13 August. The 2012 festival in Hereford took place earlier than usual, from 21 to 28 July, to avoid clashing with the 2012 Summer Olympics.
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