A CHARITY set up in memory of a musical little York girl who died of a brain tumour will mark its 20th anniversary this year by staging 20 concerts and other events.

Jessie's Fund's programme will culminate with a £90-a-head five course banquet at York’s Merchant Adventurers’ Hall on December 10, which will include a chance to hear the charity's patron, comedienne Victoria Wood, in conversation.

The fund was originally set up to pay for complementary treatment in America for nine-year-old Jessica George after she became ill and was diagnosed with a rare and inoperable brain tumour.

She died in May 1994, before the treatment could be undertaken, but her parents, musicians Lesley Schatzberger and Alan George, decided that the fund should become a charity dedicated to helping seriously ill and disabled children through the creative and therapeutic use of music.

Lesley said that over the past 20 years, it had provided musical instruments for every children’s hospice in the UK, and funded music therapists at the majority of them – 34 to date.

"We’ve paid for more than 6,000 music therapy sessions for individual children, worked in over 100 schools for children with special needs, run numerous training courses, and won a series of national awards," she said.

"So we feel we have something to celebrate over the year, and the dinner with Victoria Wood in December will be a wonderful way to start our next decade."

She said the anniversary year would be launched with a celebration of the 150th birthday of Denmark’s greatest composer, Carl Nielsen, at the National Centre for Early Music in York on January 17. "We'll be paying homage to him again with the great Wind Quintet on June 13."

She added that a full list of events through the year could found on
www.jessiesfund.org.uk/20th-anniversary and an anniversary events brochure was also being printed.