EXTRA rehearsals have been held to make sure a Witney choir is on song for a performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall.

Thirty-five members of West Oxfordshire Academy of Performing Arts will be part of a 3,000-strong choir at Sunday night’s event.

They will perform to a sell-out crowd at the 5,272-seater venue at the 40th anniversary concert of the annual Messiah from Scratch event.

Academy principal Brian Conroy said rehearsals had gone from monthly to fortnightly and were now weekly.

He said: “We are absolutely looking forward to it. It is going to be really exciting. Some of our singers have never been in the Albert Hall before.”

Katja Partridge, 45, a nursery nurse at Tower Hill Primary School, in Witney, said: “I am a bit nervous, as you would be. It is an exciting opportunity and I just can’t wait.

“Just to sing with a lot of lovely people who are my friends is really exciting.”

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