****

This concert was an uplifting, moving experience.

Perfect harmonies were the feature of the classical to contemporary pieces, with the second half devoted to songs of Africa. When You're Good To Mama, sung superbly by Sharon Jakeman, I Know Him So Well and We've Only Just Begun were exhilarating.

Talented children from Heron Park Academy and Stafford Junior School blended splendidly with the top-rate Concentus singers under the excellent musical direction of Adrian White.

It was, however, slightly ambitious to include three medleys (from The Beatles, Joseph and Oliver) and the afternoon would have been no less enjoyable if it had not stretched to two hours and 50 minutes.

Concentus's hectic 10th anniversary year has seen them sing in a host of different languages. They had to learn the Welsh national anthem when performing at the England versus Wales rugby international at Twickenham in May and here they sang in Italian and Latin plus Xhosa, Akan, Shona, Zulu and Swahili for Zimbe, the spirit of Africa.

They were superbly backed by musicians Colin Hughes (keyboard), Trevor Sheldrake (saxophone/clarinet), Keith Goddard (electric bass), Jessica Dann (percussion) and Darrell Morris (drums).

Every member of the choir and the school children deserve special praise for learning the African lyrics.