The choir of St Edmund’s Catholic School, Portsmouth, England will be visiting Malta for the eighth time when they will be performing two concerts of sacred music.

The choir composed of 60 young people and members of staff, last year took part in the second UK performance of a specially commissioned Te Deum by Ian Schofield, formerly a member of the school staff, having taken part in the work’s premiere in 2002.

In 2003, on Easter Sunday, they took part in the nation-wide broadcast on BBC 1 of the Mass for Easter, when they sang a hymn composed by Geoff Nobes, their own director of music, with words by Sean Bowman, the organiser of their tour to Malta. This work, incidentally, was composed on the Air Malta flight back from the choir’s previous visit to Malta in 2001. In November they will be performing with the Portsmouth Choral Union in the 2000 seat Portsmouth Guildhall.

The wide variety of music to be performed reflects the great patrimony of the church’s sacred music and includes old favourites alongside works by John Rutter, settings of Negro spirituals and original works. Also taking part will be Paul Wright, a noted accompanist and organist, who has played the great Royal Albert Hall organ and some of the great cathedral organs of England, and the young Maltese flautist Robert Calleja. Robert first appeared with St Edmund’s school choir in 2001, after which he was invited to fly to England to reprise his role for a concert in St John’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in Portsmouth, and again appeared with the choir on their Malta tour in 2003.

The concerts will be presented in the church of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Sliema, under the auspices of the Societa’ Filarmonica Sliema on Tuesday 30 May and in The Cathedral, Mdina, courtesy of the Metropolitan Cathedral Chapter, on Thursday 1 June. Both concerts start at 7.30pm and admission is free.