A MILITARY wife from Yealmpton will sing in front of the Queen at Buckingham Palace's grand jubilee celebrations.

Anna Middleton, who sings with the Plymouth Military Wives Choir, is part of a group that will mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee with a special song performed by a selection of the finest singers from 10 Military Wives Choirs across the country.

Anna has been chosen as one of nine singers from the Plymouth choir to make up a collection of members from ten different choirs from all over the country.

They will join the Commonwealth Band for a performance at the official concert at Buckingham Palace on June 4.

The Commonwealth Band are very diverse featuring the African Children's Choir, Aboriginal guitarist Gurrumul, Slum Drummers from Kenya's Kibera slum, the Jolly boys from Jamaica and Royal Solomon Islands Police Force Band, as well as Prince Harry on tambourine.

Anna said: 'Project Purple, as it has been known over the past six weeks, has been a very exciting and extremely secret project.

'Plymouth held auditions towards the end of March and our musical director, Rob Young, had the unenviable task of auditioning the 73 ladies of the choir and selecting just nine to be part of the Project Purple team to record Gary Barlow and Andrew Lloyd Webber's new song, 'Sing', commissioned by the Queen to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee.'

The song will be released on Monday.

Anna added: 'I was so privileged and honoured to be selected as one of the nine from Plymouth.'

Just before Easter, sworn to secrecy, 70 Military Wives went up to the renowned Abbey Road recording studios in London where they had a day with Gareth Malone and Gary Barlow.

Anna admitted that some of the women from the Plymouth and Chivenor choirs had an idea of how the day would run having recorded their Christmas single at the Air Studios in London in November, but for many of the newer choirs, it was a whole new experience.

She said: 'Everyone was star struck.

'We had a rehearsal with Gareth the night before, and the sound was phenomenal almost instantly and this was really noticeable.

'This was a group of "singers" and so the majority could read music, which made the process of learning a new song so much easier.'

The Military Wives Choir of Plymouth and Chivenor had worked under the stewardship of choirmaster broadcaster Gareth Malone recording 'Wherever You Are' but had not worked with Gary Barlow before.

Anna said: 'Our first glimpse of Gary was outside Abbey Road studios, standing by the zebra crossing made famous by the Beatles.

'Little did we know we would then be filmed following Gary across the crossing and this would be the start of the video.

'We were filmed for the video throughout the day and for a BBC documentary, which will be shown on Sunday, June 3, which shows Gary's trip around the Commonwealth searching for music and the making of the Diamond Jubilee song.

'The video is a beautiful piece of filming, so artistic with many lovely touches – including Prince Harry on his tambourine. It is an inspirational work, and very hard not to feel emotional.'

Inside the Abbey Road Studios Gary spoke to the choir about the project, the musicians he'd met on his travels, the extraordinary scenes and how the idea had all come about.

'Co-writer Andrew Lloyd Webber was in the United States during the recording day but was assisting Gary through a live satellite feed.

'Gary made us all feel at ease very quickly and the whole day sped by', recalled Anna.

'It was interesting to see a song in the making – the odd notes were changed; even the odd word and the different styles of Gareth and Gary soon became apparent.

'While Gareth is very particular about the endings of words, Gary took on a much more laid back approach and wanted the endings to disappear into the air.

'Gareth had chosen three potential soloists who Gary listened to.

'We then recorded the whole song with no one really quite knowing which bit of ours would be used on the final version.

'One of the hardest parts of the experience was not being able to tell anyone about our day, where we'd been, who we'd been with and we were all buzzing.

'In fact, it wasn't until last Friday that we could breathe freely and tell the world.'

Anna has now been told she is one of 100 women from the Military Wives Choirs who will perform at the star-studded Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert at Buckingham Palace on Monday, June 4.

She said: 'I can't tell you how exciting that feels and it really is the culmination of a year of fantastic experiences. In fact it will almost be the first birthday of the Plymouth Military Wives Choir.'