SOME 250 singers from six West Devon schools will be filling Tavistock Parish Church with music as one of the highlights of the town's music and arts festival which starts this Saturday. Apart from individual programmes from each school, the school choirs will be joining together with members of the Kelly Choral Society for the premiere performance of a new cantata, specially commissioned by the festival from Kelly College's director of music Andrew Wilson. This is not the first work by Mr Wilson to be premiered at the festival — his 2005 homage to the verse of Edward Lear,'The Land Where the Bong Tree Grows' has been enthusiastically taken up by other choirs, most recently by St. George's Collegiate School in Tasmania. This year's piece is a setting of "Grendel's End", a light-hearted and lively version of the story of the encounter between the Viking hero Beowulf and the terrifying giant Grendel. The tale is narrated by the bard Aelfric while the children have plenty of noisy opportunities to bring the Viking warriors and their families to life! The accompaniment will be provided by Mary Mazur-Park on piano and Dr Sean Sweeney on the parish church organ. The concert takes place on May 3 at 7pm. Tickets are available from Tavistock Tourist Information Centre on 01822 612938.
