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,
A Choral Fantasia (Holst) written for the Purcell bicentenary celebrations in 1895. Bridges' poem is a requiem of sorts for all past artists. The finished work is scored for the unusual forces of organ, brass, percussion and strings with chorus and solo soprano. The "Choral Fantasia" was first performed in 1931 at the Three Choirs festival in Gloucester Cathedral with Dorothy Silk (Holst's favorite soprano, who had premiered his "Choral Symphony" six years earlier) singing the solo part, and Holst conducting. The work was first performed in the United States on May 19, 1932, at Ann Arbor, Michigan's annual May Festival at Hill Auditorium;