CHILDREN from five primary schools in the Monmouth area joined up last week for Friday Afternoons, a community singing project inspired by eminent composer Benjamin Britten.

At the Blake Theatre on March 22, around 150 children from Osbaston, Overmonnow and Kymin View primary schools, Monmouth School Boys’ Prep and Monmouth School Girls’ Prep created a massed choir of voices for the second year in a row.

Also taking part were North Monmouthshire Music Centre’s foundation and junior orchestras, and Gwent Music Abergavenny Primary Schools Orchestra.

Monmouth’s Got Talent winners Carys Davies, Charlie Walker, Anna Vines, and William Chalk also performed.

The project’s organisers, Joe Walton and Mike Steer – who are music teachers at Monmouth School Boys’ Prep and Monmouth School Girls’ Prep, respectively – said: “We wanted to give the children an experience of the real joy of singing and music-making using suitable music that had been recently composed.”

The Friday Afternoons singing initiative launched nationally in 2013, the centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth.

More than 500 people attended this year’s concert in Monmouth.