MORE than 300 young Hampshire musicians are preparing take part in the opera, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in Winchester Cathedral on July 16.

Tickets have sold out for the event which is part of the Winchester Festival. It is the third successive year the Festival organisers have joined forces with Hampshire County Council's Music Service to put on a rousing and colourful performance.

This year the performance involves members of Hampshire County Youth Band, led by Jock McKenzie, members of Winchester area Schools Orchestra and Choirs, led by Carl Clausen and dancers and more than 200 young people from local schools and colleges.

As well as the opera performance the programme, which starts at 7.30pm, will include a tribute to David Bedford, composer of the opera. He is a nationally renowned musician who worked with Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells and he will be attending the event at the Cathedral.

Fanfare for David was written for Hampshire County Youth Band and the brass and percussion sections of Winchester Youth Orchestra by local composer Martin Read who has worked closely with the Music Service in the past. It will be performed prior to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and is a fusion of musical references to the Rime, as well as the Madness hit I Like Driving in My Car, Tubular Bells and Gustav Holst's Mars.

David Bedford's opera is an exciting interpretation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's narrative poem. Both the poem and the opera tell the tale of the mariner and a group of sailors who befriend an albatross that follows them. The Mariner shoots the albatross and a ghost ship appears carrying two characters, Life and Life in Death who throw a dice to determine who will capture the Mariner's soul. The opera chronicles the ensuing tale.

Two other works will also be on the programme, Shine As the Light, which helped the Hampshire County Youth Band win the national youth band championships earlier this year and In Search of Flowers which was selected by the Youth Band for the programme as a tribute to Leighton Rich, a former leader of the band who died last year.