Early Music Festival Returns to Portsmouth Cathedral

The sounds of centuries past will echo round Portsmouth Cathedral next month when it welcomes the Portsmouth Early Music Festival for the third time with nine days of concerts.

Centred around the theme ‘Early Music is for Everyone’ and running from 5 to 14 March, the 2026 programme is the festival’s third iteration.

The festival opens on 5 March with a programme from Portsmouth Cathedral’s choral and organ scholars taking the audience on a journey through Renaissance and Baroque music.

The following day Gabrieli ROAR, the bold education programme run by UK-based choir and period instrument orchestra Gabrieli Consort, brings 150 young singers to Portsmouth Cathedral for a concert of ‘Baroque Masters’ celebrating the power and beauty of Vivaldi’s Gloria, alongside Purcell’s Bell Anthem and Come Ye Sons of Art.

Young voices also be heard in Portsmouth Grammar School’s production of Benjamin Britten’s Noyes Fludde on 12 March, and in the festival’s closing performance of Handel’s Messiah on 14 March, which will feature young choristers of the Cathedral choir.

Further highlights include ‘Baroque Alchemy’, which sees recorder player Piers Adams and keyboardist Lyndy Mayle combine Baroque music with modern synthesiser technology, and the Solent Symphony Orchestra’s Spring Concert which will feature Portsmouth Performing Arts Concerto Award winner Harry Dixon and include performances of Bach and The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, narrated by Angela Tilby.

Throughout the week, early music will weave through the Cathedral’s worship and daily life, alongside talks offering further context around many of the festival’s programmes, including a screening of 1998 film Shakespeare in Love in the cathedral.

Read more here.