The Academy of Ancient Music is one of the world’s first and foremost period-instrument orchestras.

Most choral societies will spend a term learning music for one concert: the Festival chorus has marginally more than that to learn music for up to six concerts. It is an immensely hard-working group, and consistently performs to a very high standard.

The Cathedral Choirs of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester have been at the heart of the Festival from its inception in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, when the first meetings of the Lay Clerks of the three Cathedrals seem to have taken place.

The Philharmonia Orchestra was founded in 1945, primarily as a recording orchestra.