A lecturer from Wiltshire College Chippenham is thrilled to be one of just 20 people from 20 countries worldwide to feature in an international virtual choir.

Patrick Williams also had the honour of producing and directing the video of Eric Whitacre’s The Seal Lullaby, along with the help of four of the college's students.

The choir Cantores Connexi, meaning connected singers, launched its debut independent performance on YouTube this week and it has already proving a hit having been watched by nearly 1,000 people in just a few days.

The idea to create a new choir came after the singers were selected by American Grammy winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre to sing live via Skype with an on-stage choir at the prestigious Technology, Education and Design conference in March.

Following that performance, which Mr Willaims also featured in, the singers, who come from countries including Japan, Chile, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Australia, Estonia, Poland, and Puerto Rico, kept in touch and were inspired to form their own group. Since then they have worked tirelessly and the end result is described as mesmerising.

Mr Williams, 29, from Great Cheverell, who is the only singer to represent the UK and sings bass, said: “I am really buzzing at the moment; it is such a fantastic feeling that it is complete and has been published.

“The whole experience has been wonderful.

“It was a real surprise to be picked to sing in the live choir at TED and then everything spiralled from there.”

At the same time Mr Williams, who has worked at the College for four years, was thinking about an experimental production project he could do with his second year Creative Digital Media students.

He said: “It doesn’t get much more experimental than this and I thought what a brilliant thing for the students to be involved with.”

Students Shannon Mayo, from Calne, Matt Gray, from Chippenham, Henry Ahtom, from Bristol and Charlotte Hide, from Bath, all aged 20 and who are all studying the University of Bath Foundation Degree at Wiltshire College Chippenham, were all involved in editing the performance which lasts five-and-a-half minutes. They were also responsible for developing much of the graphics and text featured.

Charlotte said: “It has been so interesting connecting people across the world through music and has expanded our knowledge and skills of things that we hadn’t done before, so has been hugely beneficial to us.”

Matt said: “It has been a great experience working with all the different contributors but in such a different way and will be fantastic for the future to say we have been part of such an innovative project.”

A Wiltshire College spokesman said it was proud to support the project and funded the extra memory needed for its iMacs to render the complex project.

To watch the performance click on the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpVSV4oSR-w.