St. David's Cathedral's 25th annual music festival ended, as it began, in glorious sunshine, with an increased attendance throughout the week, the large and enthusiastic audiences responding to the bold and imaginative programming by the festival's artistic director, Timothy Noon.

In addition to the generous support of the St. David's City Council, the business community and individual patrons, the Cathedral Festival is funded by the Arts Council of Wales and Pembrokeshire County Council, and is a member of Festivals of Wales.

It is one of the remarkable facts of Britain's smallest city that, despite a population of less than 2,000 and with no choir-school foundation, the cathedral can boast two outstanding choirs. In addition to the cathedral's regular choral services, which included an Orchestral Mass at which the preacher was the Dean of Hereford, the Very Rev. Michael Tavinor, and a live broadcast of Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3, the choirs, together with Jubilate Brass, presented an exciting concert of British music on Bank Holiday Monday.

Both the exhibition in the Cathedral Library, in association with the National Library of Wales, which complemented concerts featuring the music of Thomas Tomkins and Michael Berkeley, and the archive exhibition, celebrating 25 years of the festival, provided the ideal setting for the festival's official launch by Sir David Mansel Lewis. A third exhibition, entitled The Religious Art of Frank Roper, researched and compiled by the Roper Exhibition Group, Llandaff Cathedral, offered an introduction to the work of this distinguished sculptor.

Looking back to its roots as the St. David's Bach Festival, the colourful opening concert featured The Hanover Band in a programme of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, and during the week, the festival was glad to welcome back to St. David's the early music group Fretwork and Friends, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Their concert, broadcast live by Radio 3, premiered a work by Michael Berkeley, the orchestra's composer-in-residence, who discussed this commissioned work in a pre-concert conversation with composer and broadcaster, Geraint Lewis.

The youthful talents of violinist, Davinder Singh, finalist in the 2003 Texaco Young Musician of Wales, and trumpeter, Tomi Johnson, winner of the 2002 Young Musician of Dyfed, attracted record audiences at their early evening recitals, and many more young people, encouraged by the festival's policy of offering free tickets to those aged 16 and under, were enthralled by such diverse performances as those given by the lively and extrovert organist, Wayne Marshall, The Galliard Ensemble and the Irish vocal group Anuna, and the screening of the silent film classic 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', to a soundtrack improvised by the international organist, David Briggs.

The festival continues to pursue a lively education policy, and, in partnership with 'Live Music Now!' Wales, sponsored a visit to the St. David's Care in the Community by Carl Raven and Gethin Griffiths, the dynamic young saxophone and double bass duo. This year's mid-day concert at Llanrhian featured The Mavron Quartet, marking a welcome return to the festival by students at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Lunch after the concert was kindly provided by the Saints and Stones Group of North Pembrokeshire.

A fine performance by the festival chorus and orchestra of Elgar's 'The Dream of Gerontius', which brought together many musicians from a wide area of West Wales, was a fitting climax to yet another golden week of varied and excellent music-making.