New three-year residency launched ahead of the 300th edition of the festival in 2028.
The Three Choirs Festival announces Gavin Higgins as its inaugural Associate Composer, marking the launch of a major composer development programme, and continuing the festival’s long-standing commitment to new music. This three-year residency deepens the festival’s historic ties with living composers, placing long-term creative collaboration at the heart of its programming in the lead-up to its 300th edition in 2028.
Gavin’s first commission as Associate Composer, a setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, will be premiered at the 2026 Festival in Gloucester, the city of his birth. The work will be premiered by the combined three cathedral choirs of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester at Choral Evensong on Wednesday 29 July, and will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.
Gavin Higgins, comments, “I am absolutely thrilled to be announced as the Three Choirs Festival inaugural Associate Composer. I was born in Gloucester and grew up in the area and so the chance to come back home and share my music with the amazing audiences Three Choirs attracts feels very special indeed.”
Each year, a new composer will join the programme, building a cohort of three composers in residence by the third year. Over the course of their residencies, Associate Composers will engage closely with audiences and contribute to the artistic life of the festival, culminating in the premiere of a major choral-orchestral work in their final year. This initiative reinforces the festival’s role as a force for nurturing new music, and championing the voices of today’s most compelling composers.
The Gloucester 2026 festival will run from Saturday 25 July 2026 to Saturday 1 August 2026.
Image credit: Michael-Whitefoot
