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At least 10 choirs will be performing at the Northern Soul: Gospel Showcase Festival at St John the Evangelist Church on Waterloo Road on March 4.

Performers from Bradford, Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds will join choirs from Greater Manchester for the festival aimed to show off the talent of Gospel choirs outside London.

Organisers hope the event will prove to be the launchpad for plans to develop the church as a religious music school to provide keyboard, organ, brass and choral tuition and train musical directors.

Rev Sue Talbot, outside St. John's

St John's - featured on the successful Channel Four Christmas series focusing on multi-cultural life within a square mile of Cheetham Hill Road - has suffered a steady decline over the last 20 years.

The church, built to accommodate hundreds of worshippers, has a congregation of around 15 people and cannot afford to maintain the building which has suffered vandalism and the ravages of time.

Parish minister Rev Sue Talbot hopes the Gospel cathedral project will revive the congregation's fortunes and create a church fit for the 21st Century.

She said: "The aim of the St John project is to create a musical talent school for the inner city drawing on those with talent, interest and aptitude from the whole of Manchester but with particular emphasis on the inner city.

"This festival is planned for the joy of music making and to celebrate and showcase the latent and life of the Gospel choirs outside of London. The festival is also to pilot and pioneer the beginning of the dream of the St John project."