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
Three Choirs Festival he co-featured with Elgar as a central prop to the musical repertoire. Sumsion fostered a relationship with Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály and programmed Kodály's works at six Gloucester festivals. Other names include Gustav Holst, Arthur Sullivan, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, William Walton, Arthur Bliss and Benjamin Britten and recently, Lennox Berkeley, John McCabe, William Mathias, Paul Patterson and James MacMillan. A timeline of some of the more significant events in the festival's history from 1709 until the present day has been compiled by Anthony Boden: Three Choirs Festival timeline In 1995, a Festival Society was established to provide a means