The Southern Cathedrals Festival is a five-day music festival held in rotation among the English cathedrals of Chichester, Winchester and Salisbury, in the penultimate week of July. [1] The festival was restored in 1960 after initial attempts to create the annual occasion were followed by 28 years without it. The respective director of music acts as festival director when it is that cathedral's turn to host the event.
In September 1904, a service was held in Chichester Cathedral to celebrate the reopening of the main organ of that cathedral following its restoration by Hele of Plymouth. This brought together the cathedral choirs of Chichester, Winchesterand Salisbury. In 1905, the cathedral choirs met in Salisbury, followed by Winchester in 1906. Bishop Wilberforce of Chichester died in September 1907, so the return to Chichester had to be delayed until 1908. Thereafter, the Three Choirs Festival, as it was then known, continued until 1913 when the annual meeting was suspended because of the First World War. The festival was revived in 1920 and continued to be held until 1932. At that time the annual meeting consisted of a single day and the joint performance by the three choirs of a choral evensong.
In 1960, the festival was re-established by John Birch (Chichester), Reginald Alwyn Surplice (Winchester) and Christopher Dearnley (Salisbury), with the title changed to the Southern Cathedrals Festival, and the length increased to two days, with two joint evensong services and the addition of a concert. [2]
The festival is now three days long, consisting of three concerts, a choral masterclass, an organ recital, a Festival Eucharist, buffet lunches, three evensong services sung separately by each choir and a "Fringe" event. [3] The Fringe is an entertainment which is written and performed by the hosting cathedral. It consists of solos sung by lay clerks, comedy acts by organists and vicars, and so on.
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An organ recital is given in the evening of the first day of the festival. Recitalists since 1986 have included:
Priory Records is a record company in the UK founded in 1980, and devoted mostly to church music and organ music. Important projects have included the complete Psalms sung by cathedral choirs to Anglican chant, all of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis settings by Herbert Howells, the "British Church Composer Series", the "Choral and Music from English Cathedrals", the "Music for Evensong" and, more recently, all the hymns in the complete New English Hymnal Series. There are also three discs of the Communion Service settings of Stanford and four further discs featuring settings of the Te Deum and Jubilate.
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Herbert Whitton Sumsion was an English musician who was organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1928 to 1967. Through his leadership role with the Three Choirs Festival, Sumsion maintained close associations with major figures in England's 20th-century musical renaissance, including Edward Elgar, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Although Sumsion is known primarily as a cathedral musician, his professional career spanned more than 60 years and encompassed composing, conducting, performing, accompanying, and teaching. His compositions include works for choir and organ, as well as lesser-known chamber and orchestral works.
John Anthony Birch was a British organist and choral director.
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Sir Alfred Herbert Brewer was an English composer and organist. As organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1896 until his death, he contributed a good deal to the Three Choirs Festival for 30 years.
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Sarah Baldock is an English organist and choral conductor, formerly the Organist and Master of the Choristers of Chichester Cathedral. She is notable as one of the earliest women to be appointed to the senior music post at a Church of England cathedral. She was married to counter-tenor David Hurley. Baldock has become known as a popular soloist in the UK and abroad.
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