• Southend Choirs have a long association with the BBC and are currently preparing for their latest appearance at the BBC Proms in September. Reporter PAUL NIZINSKYJ finds out more.

For an organisation with no small reputation in the music world, the Southend Boys’ and Girls’ Choirs operate in a surprisingly humble fashion.

As I arrive at the music hall of Southend Girls’ School, the tuck shop is being arranged for the girls rehearsing in a classroom across the corridor.

I manage to speak to director Roger Humphrey before the room is flooded with young ladies of various ages, in a kaleidoscope of school uniforms from across Essex.

Roger, 57, says: “We have a long history of being on the BBC.

“The Boys’ Choir was often asked to do very prestigious Proms. The first Prom I was asked to do with the Boys’ Choir was in 2000, where we were asked to field a choir of more than 100 for Berlioz’ Te Deum with the London Symphony Orchestra.”

This was followed, in 2006, by the Queen’s 80th birthdayRoyal Prom and the Blue Peter Prom in 2007 and, on September 6, they will be performing Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Symphony Chorus and the London Philharmonic Choir at the Royal Albert Hall. The Proms concert will be broadcast live on Radio 3 and the 100 young singers aged ten to 18 will be performing to an audience of more than 7,000 people in the hall alone.

“I think they’re very excited,”Roger says. “It’s a greatmusic festival to be a part of and, while some of the younger ones might be a little overwhelmed by it all, some might not know the full significance of what they’re doing until they’re older.”

The choirs also give their members the chance to travel the world, with recent performances in the United States, Canada, the Sydney Opera House, Singapore and St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, to name a few.

Brentwood Erskine pupil Dominique Bradford, 17, can certainly attest to the benefits of her decade in the Girls’ Choir.

“It’s not Christmas unless you’re singing in a choir at a concert in St Martin-in-the-Fields,” she says. “I also had the opportunity to do La Boheme with the British Youth Opera and be in a big choir on the seafront when the Olympic Torch came through.”

For Jess Smith, 15, the reputation of the choir is also a big plus. “People ask what you do and I say I’m in Southend Girls’ Choir and they all say ‘I know that choir’. People also know me as that person whodid that bit of singing for the Queen.”