ARCHBISHOP Desmond Tutu is to appear at Salisbury's International Arts Festival this summer.
The Nobel Peace Laureate will be in conversation with ITV news anchorman Mark Austin at the City Hall and will deliver a sermon in the Cathedral, where he will be made a Sarum Canon.
His presence will be central to a Peace Weekend over the final three days of the Festival in June.
The Archbishop's visit follows months of negotiations involving Festival director Jo Metcalf, Salisbury Community Choir's musical director Fiona Clarke and the Cathedral authorities.
The trip was first mooted when the Community Choir was touring Cape Town last spring and Jo Metcalf flew out there to meet them.
The visit coincides with the arrival of the 77-strong Fezeka children's choir from the township of Gugulethu, who will perform Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace in the Cathedral with SCC during the Festival, under the name The Rainbow Choir.
At the Festival launch on Monday Ms Metcalf said: "It was Archbishop Tutu who coined the phrase Rainbow Nation for post-apartheid South Africa, and he is extremely supportive of the Rainbow Choir project."
It is hoped that Archbishop Tutu will have a chance to have tea with the children and hear them sing while he is here.
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