The children come from five different schools - Henley College, Chiltern Edge, Nettlebed Primary, Shiplake Primary and Trinity Primary. Called Algon and The Star Children, the song they'll be performing is based on a story from the Chippewa Indians of North America and was composed by Barry Russell.  | | These musical shakers will be used by the children. |
So why this story? "The story is so rich in images, the piece tells the story, it uses episodes of the story to create different bits of music," says Barry. The song is made up of a series of sounds made by the children, rather than straightforward singing in English, another thing Barry was keen to do. "If you sing in English it's easy to get lazy. If you're singing 'Ha, Ei, Yo' it's more of a challenge". The children met up a few weeks ago to record a backing track for Sunday's performance and Barry said working with the children has been really good. In the past he has done similar productions, like once working with 750 kids and 100 cheerleaders in a football stadium for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.  | | Barry Russell conducting the schoolchildren. |
"You just need to treat them as professionals and don't say teacher things like - be quiet and sit down! They soon learn that they need to listen to know what they're doing." The children will be working with top A Capella group The Magnets. Michael Welton is one of the six singers and he says working with the kids has been great. "We really like working with the kids. We cross over the credibility barrier between being a pop group and education because we can actually sing! They see six guys with mikes and think we're a boy band but that's not the case." The band have been doing workshops with the schoolchildren over the last year, basically getting them to "make stupid noises with their mouths".  | | Henley College students |
The piece is quite unusual so how does Michael think the Henley crowd will react? "I'm really looking forward to seeing how the people of Henley will respond to it as it is a really mad piece. Really colourful. I hope everyone will love the piece and enjoy the show." The performance will take place as part of the Family Fiesta on Sunday afternoon at Henley Festial. The Magnets will go on to play their own set on the floating stage later on Sunday evening. | 
