SHE’S not just a world class singer and a talented trombonist, but she’s also a highly talented linguist who will hopefully be heading to Oxford University next month to study German.

Kirsten Stewart was among the 62 members of Barnsley Youth Choir who achieved an astonishing quadruple win across four events at the World Choir games in Latvia.

But while the rest of the choir were sleeping off their exploits after an exhausting ten days, Kirsten jumped back on another bus on Barnsley Metropolitan Band’s concert tour of Germany where she played trombone as well as compered the concerts in German.

“I was absolutely exhausted on the way there, I think I slept most of the way on the coach and the ferry,” said Kirsten, 18, of Lidgett Lane, Tankersley, who had travelled back from Latvia through the night with the choir.

"I've been in the Youth Choir since it started, when I was about nine or ten. But I'd never been abroad with the choir before, I hadn't felt like auditioning before.

"I always used exams as an excuse. It was only this time I had the confidence to go for it and I'm so glad I did.

"It was fantastic, then to follow it with the trip to Germany has been great. I've been playing trombone for about as long as I've been in the choir but I've only actually joined the Met Band this year, in January."

If she achieves her target grades of three As in her A level results later this month, she will be accepting her offer of a place at Oxford to study German.

Conductor Alex Francis said: "I've taught Kirsten trombone all the way through, from Tankersley Primary and Kirk Balk, and I've been trying to get her to come to band for years.

"She's so talented in so many ways that she's ended up always being busy on Wednesday nights, so I'm so glad she's finally come along and joined in.

"Her German is fantastic, and our German friends said how well she spoke and how clearly they understood her. She was useful throughout the trip, not just in announcing the music, but helping us organise all sorts of things."

Barnsley has been unofficially twinned with the village of Rachtig through the band for 22 years, with at least eight visits since 1995, and the Rachtig band has visited Barnsley twice.