Gavin Higgins to be inaugural Associate Composer at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester in 2026

Gavin Higgins (Photo: Yusef Bastaway)

The Three Choirs Festival has announced Gavin Higgins as its inaugural Associate Composer, marking the launch of a major composer development programme. Higgins will launch his three-year residency with a commission for a new setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis to 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 2026, and will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. Higgins' cantata The Faerie Bride was performed at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester in 2023 [see my review]

Unusually, the new Associate Composer programme will involve multiple composers, 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 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. 

The Three Choirs Festival opens in Gloucester on 25 July 2026 with Walton's Belshazzar's Feast and concludes on 1 August 2026 with Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius. See the festival website.