THE Sheldonian will host around 500 Oxfordshire pupils in a musical celebration of diversity on Wednesday.

'We Are the Children of the World' aims to show Oxford's 'hidden multilingualism' and weaves in Mandarin, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic, Polish, Swahili and Portuguese.

Organisers include the Festival of the Arts, Oxford University and Magdalen College School, where a rehearsal was held last week.

Tickets are nearly sold out for the two showings.

Composer Lin Marsh said: “This has been such an imaginative, exciting project. It's been quite a challenge finding traditional fragments of [global] folk songs and learning [pronounciation].”