Even the five- and six-year-olds are learning to stretch their vocal chords . . . do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do. The boys and girls from junior infants up to sixth class are using their voices and learning the best choral practices.

The children, in nine national schools dotted around Co Wexford, are singing their hearts out. For special concerts, classes from these schools come together to perform.

Last year they performed at the National Concert Hall in Dublin in February and this year some of them will sing at the Carlow Young Artists Choir in May. In December, they sang for their home audience in Wexford town and in Enniscorthy, performing a newly commissioned work entitled The Dancing Master by Sue Furlong. The two concerts were sold out and reviews hailed the performances as being one of Wexford's best cultural events ever.

The activity is all part of the County Wexford Children's Choir Project which aims to develop the growth of choral music in the county. The initiative has funding from the county council, the Arts Council and the Wexford Organisation for Rural Development (WORD).

The idea is to target primary teachers and their pupils, community choirs and second-level students, get them singing and train them in choral techniques as well as giving them a deeper knowledge and understanding of choral music.

The project runs until the start of the millennium but, if director Rosaleen Molloy has her way, Wexford people will be singing in choirs a lot longer. She is currently trying to get funds for the project's second phase. In the meantime, phase one is going from strength to strength.

"We are trying to develop the musical tradition that already existed in schools," says Molloy. "All of the schools would have some level of choral activity but they were in need of help. Teachers didn't have the skills, the confidence or the competence to work at levels that they would have wanted to."

She visits the schools about once a week for practice. At the moment, she is working with up to 50 teachers and their students to develop their choral skills. "It's a whole-school approach from infants up to sixth class," she says.

Last year, the first year of the project, structures were put in place, foundations were laid and students and teachers got used to each other, Molloy explains. Running concurrently with the classroom sessions are after-school sessions for teachers. A separate training programme for community choir leaders and choristers is now running with up to 10 community choirs involved to date.

The choir's next big event She is studying as a post-graduate with the US-based Choral Music Experience Institute of Choral Teacher Education. As a member, she says, she tries to promote the philosophy of the institute and to further the development of choral music.

Stasia Redmond, a teacher at Rathangan National School, Co Wexford, has trained school choirs for first communion, confirmation and Christmas. "Rosaleen's classes have brought the music to a different level, a more advanced level. You can hear it in the sound and in the children's togetherness and enjoyment. Their understanding of it has increased.

"She has done parts, voice training and rhythm with them. It's training for the teachers as well as the class with the hope that we would take over and continue on. We've been sitting in."

"As teachers we would feel that we haven't been adequately trained and to get something like this done has been a great help," she says.

Contact: Rosaleen Molloy at Wexford Co Council - phone (053) 42211, extension 369