I MOVED from Cambridgeshire to Worcester a few months ago. When I told people where I was going one of the most frequent responses was, ‘Oh, Lucky you: Three Choirs country.’ The Three Choirs Festival is one of the things that puts this city on the map and last week I was able to relish it myself for the first time.

I get the impression that some local people rather take it for granted but I dare to say as a newcomer that it is a very wonderful thing of which we in Worcester should be very proud.

People come from all over the world to enjoy it for it is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious music festivals.

As has happened every year that Worcester has hosted the festival since it began in the early 18th century, the city was buzzing with music and other cultural activity and those who seized the opportunity to do so were able to be part of a veritable musical feast of music both sacred and secular.

The three cathedral choirs of Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester were at its centre but a host of musical talent descended upon the city to join them.

Some might wonder why the Church should be so closely associated with a music festival but it is worth remembering that music and faith have been closely connected to one another for much longer than the Three Choirs Festival.

This is because people of faith have found that music is one of the best places to catch a glimpse of God’s glory.

Music has the power to move human beings deeply because it speaks more eloquently than words of the God who created us.

There is a sense in which music is just a succession of notes which can be analysed mathematically.

However, anyone who enjoys music, whether it be classical or popular, will know that it is much more than pattern of sounds arranged in certain mathematically sequences.

It is a realm of wonder, love and praise made accessible to us by the sounds we hear but infinitely more than the actual sum of these sounds themselves.

Those of us who attended the Three Choirs Festival last week were privileged to have that realm of wonder, love and praise opened up to us in new and exciting ways.