VOICES from Chipping Norton will be well represented at a major festival coming soon.

The Leeds Millennium Festival is an international showcase for amateur performers, featuring acts from more than 200 festivals across the world.

Two groups have been chosen from the Chipping Norton Music and Drama Festival, held earlier this year, to take their places on the festival stage.

They include young actors James Drinkwater and Scott Sullivan, who won the under-12s acting class at Chippy with a duologue from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer which impressed the judges with their mastery of the American southern accent.

Aged 11, both are former pupils of Dormer House School in Moreton where they were coached by the Guildhall-trained speech and drama teacher, Susie Lowe. James is now at Chipping Norton School and Scott at Kingham Hill School.

The second act going to Leeds also comes from Chipping Norton School.

Last year its music department formed a mixed singing group called Voiceworks, which now has about 30 members; pupils and staff.

The group, under director Peter Hunt, the school's head of music, entered the town's music festival and won a certificate in the choirs class with a programme featuring a carol called Bleak Midwinter, composed by GCSE music student Tom Race.

The Leeds festival runs from November 2 to 5.