THE best music knows no barriers of language, as North-East child prodigy 12-year-old Sarah Jane Burn has found out.

Percussionist Sarah, of Annfield Plain, near Stanley, County Durham, has been asked to fly to Paris to star in the city's New Year's Eve musical celebrations. The invitation resulted from members of an international touring company hearing Sarah play at last year's Millennium Eve extravaganza at Newcastle.

It not the first time Sarah's mother, Joan, has had a call out of the blue from a prestigious musical group about her daughter, who normally spends her time playing the drums, xylophone and bells for Easington Colliery Band.

Earlier this year, she received a call from the City of Birmingham Band asking if her daughter could fill in at a show they were putting on in Newcastle. Sarah, who is close to having all the qualifications she needs to study music at university, was also asked to play in a concert to mark the recent opening of the Stockton Millennium Bridge.

Mrs Burn said: "It's all very exciting, but I'm only half surprised by it.

"She has always played at something musical. I remember I used to try and stop her playing the spoons when she was just two. Her grandmother was a music teacher and has helped her from a young age."

Sarah said of the forthcoming trip to Paris: "I just can't wait."