THREE Choirs festival organiser Liz Pooley talks of the 'tingle factor'. That shiver the sound of choral voices in cavernous surroundings sends up the spine.

That's the very essence of the festival says Liz - a sensation 21st century audiences still feel as acutely as their Victorian counterparts.

Evensong easing across Cathedral Close on a mellow August night... Is that Elgar in earnest conversation at Church Street gate or a jazz duo 'joshing' its way to All Saints?

Audiences for each can now recognise the chord Three Choirs strikes across two centuries spanned by a shared love of music.

When artistic director Geraint Bowen steps up to conduct the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Festival Chorus through Verdi's Requiem at 7.45pm on Friday, August 22, that love will have held about 20,000 people in its spell over six days.

Sell-out

The ending of this year's Three Choirs Festival on such a familiar note sold 1,500 tickets alone.

"It's a dramatic work, one a diverse audience can feel comfortable with," says Liz.

And diversity is something of a watchword for the 21st century Three Choirs, especially in a Herefordshire where summer has spawned a festival 'every other week'.

Though there is no question of anywhere other than Hereford Cathedral ever being the festival base when it comes to the county, events are being shared around various venues from surrounding churches to The Courtyard Centre for the Arts.

In fact it is The Courtyard that hosts the festival's choral curtain raiser, community singing project The Gathering Wave on Saturday, which launches the week.

There is a thriving fringe, jazz and even theatre - the modern audience gets concessions unthinkable to its 19th century equivalent. But expansion, says Liz, hasn't swallowed the festival's liturgical links whole.

On her Three Choirs hat trick, Liz can say that for all the challenges, each of the three she has organised comes back to the 'tingle factor'.

Evensong easing across Cathedral Close on a mellow August night. Always has done ... always will.

l Hereford Three Choirs Festival begins on Saturday, August 16 and runs through to August 22. Tickets are still available for the majority of concerts from the box office on 01432 354597. For full details see the website at www.3choirs.org