Three Choirs Festival

INTRODUCTION
The 2006 festival offers concert-goers an exciting mix of classical music across the centuries, celebrating major anniversaries of four very different composers, as well as maintaining our tradition of commissioning new work.

The original performers, the three cathedral choirs, remain at the heart of the festival, but the large-scale choral repertoire at today's concerts is performed by the Festival Chorus, joined by an array of international artists and ensembles. We are delighted to have the Philharmonia Orchestra in residence at Hereford for the first time.

We will celebrate the genius of Mozart in the 250th anniversary of his birth with a performance of his Requiem and fifty years after Gerald Finzi's death we present Dies Natalis, wonderful settings of the Herefordshire poet Thomas Traherne. Dmitry Shostakovich was born in 1906 and several facets of his musical imagination will be on display. It is a hundred years, too, since the first performance of Elgar's oratorio The Kingdom, written at his home in Hereford, so it is fitting to open the festival with this great work.

Commissioning and performing new music has always been an important part of the Three Choirs Festival and in 2006, we are delighted to present the UK premiere of James MacMillan's Sun-Dogs, conducted by the composer.

Walton's Belshazzar's Feast will provide a rousing climax to this rich feast of music, exhibitions and talks all in a unique setting on the banks of the River Wye, in the beautiful Herefordshire countryside, increasingly celebrated for its fine food
and drink.