It's taken three years to organise and cost £70,000, but a classical event to raise funds the The Children's Foundation is ready for the opening curtain. Viv Hardwick reports.

HOLLAND'S widely respected Rotterdam Opera Choir (ROK), plus the soloists Inessa Galante and Edmund Toliver, will perform a programme of favourite songs from Puccini, Gershwin and Verdi for charity at the end of the month. The event will be held at Newcastle's City Hall and Durham Cathedral on May 27 and 28.

The 100-strong Dutch singers are so enthusiastic about supporting a major cultural event - which will also improve child healthcare in the North-East - that they are paying half their own travelling costs.

Choir chairman Gerard Saarberg says: "It will be fantastic and we think the venues are amazing. What's most important for us and the two cities is that we are bringing Inesse Galante with us. We've performed two New Year concerts with her and she is wonderful in voice and as a human being. Some think they are God, but she is a person who you can talk with and work with."

The German-based US singer Edmund Toliver, basso-cantate, has also been recruited. Gerard rates him as a giant of song, and not only because the black singer is at least two metres tall and weighs "at least twice as much" as the choir chairman.

The project was launched as a result of Peter Candler, the managing director of Durham's Rivergreen Developments, going to Rotterdam for a meeting with Dutch steel fabricator boss Gerard.

He says: "We built a big project for Peter's company in Sunderland and he came to one of our concerts. As a middle-sized choir we have an amateur status but we try to organise things in a professional manner."

The Rivergreen boss was so impressed with the ROK that the charity concerts idea was launched with additional sponsorship from PricewaterhouseCoopers, HSBC and Thompsons the builders, plus funding and a civic reception arranged by Durham County Council.

Gerard adds: "The reason we are doing all this is because of the fantastic work being done by The Children's Foundation."

The charity is an independent organisation which funds the Institute For Child Health based at Newcastle's RVI Hospital and is dedicated to lifting health levels for North-East children.

Barbara Gubbins, chief executive of the foundation, says: "Any money raised will go towards research into childhood conditions. We're also dedicated to services which keep children happy during their stay in hospital. We are very much a regional charity and make grants across the North-East to community groups."

The charity needs to raise at least £600,000 a year and is developing new publicity and contacts thanks to ROK's visit.

Barbara adds: "I think that fund-raising fatigue has affected us because of so many appeals going on at the moment, that's why charities are turning to organising concerts.

"Unfortunately, part of the reason the foundation was set up back in 1990 was because the region's child health was the worst in the country. That's still a fact. Although things have progressed significantly, North-East child health levels are still the worst. In some things we are the best, but some areas are still the worst. Our vision is to turn it completely around."

In 2006, the ROK will perform its New Year concerts at Rotterdam's De Doelen City Hall for the 40th time for an audience of around 3,500-4,000.

Peter jokes: "I have two lives. I build big steel structures in Europe and, if possible, around the world and my second life is the choir and there is, of course, my third life of marriage but don't ask my wife about the effects of the first two on the third.

* Classical ROK with Inessa Galante. Ticket: City Hall May 27, £30, £25, £20 & £15. Tel: 0191-261 2606; Durham Cathedral, May 28, £25. Tel: Durham Tourist Information Centre 0191-384 7641.