Our sparkling Christmas Tree Festival will be open to visit from Thursday 7 December 2023 until Sunday 14 January 2024 (excluding Christmas Eve and Christmas Day), during normal visiting hours - 10am-5pm Monday to Saturday (last entry 4.30pm) and 1-3pm on Sundays (last entry 2.30pm).
To mark 16 Days of Activism 2023, we are partnering with the Mothers' Union Diocese of Worcester and Worcester Community Trust to display an exhibition titled 'Souls of Our Shoes' in the Lady Chapel. The exhibition will feature dozens of pairs of shoes with quotes from survivors of gender-based violence printed on the inner soles. It will challenge viewers to stop and consider taking a walk in someone else’s shoes, learning how survivors’ inner hidden souls are affected by violence. The shoes are used for their symbolism.
Hallelujah! Handel’s glorious and much-loved oratorio, Messiah, returns to the magnificent, specially candlelit surroundings of Worcester Cathedral on Saturday 9 December 2023. Accompanying the 140 voices of Worcester Festival Choral Society – one of England’s leading choirs of its kind – will be four of the UK's most outstanding soloists and the superb Meridian Sinfonia Baroque orchestra, all under the baton of Worcester Cathedral's director of music Samuel Hudson. Don't miss this perfect musical prelude to the Christmas season! Soloists: EMILIA MORTON – soprano TOM LILBURN – countertenor MATTHEW MINTER – tenor JAMES OLDFIELD – bass baritone
Join us for an enchanting evening of seasonal music at our annual Christmas concert. This year’s first half will feature Make we Merry by David Bednall, a contemporary Christmas work with brass and percussion accompaniment, full of colour and festivity. The second half of the concert will include favourite Christmas Carols, and some where the audience will be invited to join in and help raise the roof for Christmas! Performed by Worcester Cathedral Choir, our ever-popular Christmas concert has become a traditional part of Christmas for many families. We hope you’ll join us this year for another feast of festive music, performed with a seasonal dose of Christmas cheer!
For the last week of Advent (Monday 18 – Friday 22 December) the Learning Team will be holding a daily story time session in the Lady Chapel for pre-school children and their grown-ups. The event will run for half an hour, from 11am – 11.30am and will feature stories based upon several woodland animals’ experiences of Christmas and this very special time of year. Each day there will be a new story with a new adventure and a different member of the Cathedral team taking on the role of storyteller. There's no need to book, just drop in and enjoy a festive story in this beautiful setting.
Join us on Christmas Eve for our much-loved Crib Services featuring carols, the story of Christmas and real donkeys and sheep. Services take place at 1pm and 3pm. Please note: Tickets are not required to attend the Crib Services this year - just turn up and experience the joy of the Christmas Story!
The History in the Making Exhibition is a showcase of some of the work produced during a year-long programme of creative activities celebrating Worcestershire’s rich heritage and the voices of underrepresented communities. Told through a variety of media including visual arts, drawing, photography, zines, creative writing and poetry, this exhibition offers an insight into the stories of local residents past and present. The project was run by The Word Association and artist Oliver Bliss, drawing from the collections in Worcestershire Archives and Worcester Cathedral’s Library in partnership with Worcester Cathedral, Worcester Archive & Archaeology Service at The Hive and Sugar Daddy’s Café. The project has been generously funded by Arts Council England with additional support from Worcester City Council and The Elmley Foundation.
Beethoven - Mass in C Richard Blackford - Mirror of Perfection Two, thrilling choral classics - one old, one new - are coming to Worcester Cathedral on 16 March 2024, performed by the 140 voices of Worcester Festival Choral Society. Beethoven’s radiant Mass in C major was commissioned by Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II in 1807. Containing some of the composer’s most sublime music for voices, the Mass is regarded as one of Beethoven’s most moving works. The concert also includes Richard Blackford's breathtakingly beautiful 1996 cantata, Mirror of Perfection, expressively set to poems by St Francis of Assisi. Outstanding soloists will be soprano Susanna Fairbairn, mezzo soprano Samantha Price, tenor Gwilym Bowen and bass Dominic Sedgwick. Accompanying will be the superb Meridian Sinfonia orchestra, and the conductor is Worcester Cathedral's exceptional director of music, Samuel Hudson.