WAVERLEY Abbey School recently reached the final stage of this year's prestigious Music for Youth festival, with their junior school choir progressing through a tough regional competition to book their place in the national performance event, to be held at the Birmingham Conservatoire on July 9. The local school has a long established history of choral tradition, ever since its inauguration as the first Cistercian abbey in the UK in 1128. Currently, the standard at Waverley Abbey is incredibly high, with Hannah Good overseeing this particular choir as a group for the last four years. A previous contestant herself, this is Ms Good's second entry in the Music For Youth competition with Waverley Abbey, and having performed so well in the regional finals held in Woking, she is thrilled to have reached this "prestigious" event in July. Singing a selection of musical theatre numbers, all in costume, the Waverley Abbey junior choir are currently exhaustively rehearsing their selections from such famous productions as Les Miserables and Cats. To progress further still, to highest level of the Music for Youth programme and a performance at the Royal Albert Hall, would be spectacular but Ms Good is "so pleased just to get this far". Music for Youth itself is an educational charity set up in 1971, with a growing reputation for its work in youth music education. By providing free access to educational and performance opportunities for all kinds of groups of young music makers, they offer around 100,000 musicians and audience members the chance to take part in their events and concerts every year. Staged between July 9 and July 14, this year's national festival showcases 12,000 musicians and singers performing 800 different works during this six day-long celebration of young people's music making. With events hosted at a variety of venues in Birmingham, including the Symphony Hall and Carling Academy 2, every style of music is represented and the bright youthful music makers come from every corner of the country. The infants and juniors section, in which the Waverley Abbey choir will be performing, is the opening event of the 2007 festival and Ms Good is "delighted at the opportunity" to compete on such a large stage.
