If you listen carefully you might just be able to hear the choral singers of Harrow warming up for a rather special day.

On Thursday, March 29 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will be attending a specially commissioned community event of music and dance at Krishna-Avanti Primary School in Edgware as part of a historic visit to Harrow to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Part of the entertainment will be provided by the Diamond Jubilee Choir, an ensemble of 150 adult and children singers from ten Harrow choirs who are collaborating for the first time, under the direction of local conductors Bryan Kesselman and Philip Barnett.

"The rehearsals so far have gone really well," says Bryan, co-founder and musical director of the Tonic choirs and the choir’s composer for the event. "Harrow Music Services asked if we could perform a big choral work, Shifting Sands, that I wrote to mark the centenary of Harrow High School," Byran explains, "and also write a choral fanfare. The first piece was strong but slow and thoughtful, so we thought for the second we should have something with a celebratory, jubilatory feel."

The result is the Diamond Jubilee Choral Fanfare, with lyrics from poet Edmund Spenser’s Epithalamion and George Pettie’s A Petite Pallace of Pettie his Pleasure, both from the sixteenth century.

"The music flows fairly fast when I’m writing," says Brian, "the harmonies seem to flow from my mind, through my fingers and on to the page. Hearing the piece for the first time [in rehearsal] was very exciting."

Philip, who wrote the words for Shifting Sands and will be conducting both pieces on the day while Bryan plays piano, adds: "It works very well for this event. We’ve created a musical event that involves both past and present pupils of Harrow High School - the children looking forward and the adults looking back. It’s going to be extraordinary for me to be conducting in front of Her Majesty.

"The singers are so excited. It’s an honour and an experience and a privilege and a whole host of other words, I can’t even think!"