THE cream of Bury's young musical talent will display their prowess during a series of concerts to be staged next week.

Whitefield-based Bury Music Centre is holding its three-day Festival 2001 featuring around 250 musical-minded youngsters, including singers, drawn from local schools.

The event will be an ideal and fitting showcase for the young maestros and the various orchestras and ensembles attached to Bury Music Centre.

Bury's Elizabethan Suite is the venue for the festival to be staged next Monday, (June 25), Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at 7.30pm.

The programme for Monday will feature the combined training brass and intermediate concert band, junior strings, vocal soloists, clarinet choir and senior strings. Tuesday night's concert will involve senior brass, flute choir, training strings, wind ensemble and training concert band.

The following evening will see performances from the big band, vocal soloists, junior brass and senior concert band.

Bury Music Centre, located at Mersey Drive CP school, is one of the foremost in the region in terms of instrument teaching and performance quality and has built up a formidable reputation during the past 30 years.

The centre, which is served by 25 full-time and part-time staff, undertakes the musical tuition of about 1,500 young musicians.

Admission to the festival is by programme costing £4, £2.50 concessions. Children free.

Programme gains admission to all three evenings. For more information, contact Bury Music Centre on 796 9910.

The centre's youth and training orchestras will be taking part in a concert at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester on Sunday, July 1 at 7.30pm. Tickets and information from the above telephone number.