The Szentegyháza Children's Philharmonia will be appearing at Windsor Capitol Theatre on 29 June 2017. Image courtesy of The Szentegyháza Children's Philharmonia.

(WINDSOR, ON) - There will be 140 children from a renowned Hungarian choir group performing in Windsor on Thursday. Starting at 6:00pm they will be appearing at the Capitol Theatre in the city's downtown.

The Szentegyháza Children's Philharmonia will augment its singers with an additional ten children from the Hungarian community in Canada to perform an historic vocal musical salute for Canada's 150th birthday.

The choir will perform Oh Canada and a repertoire of songs in Hungarian, English, French, and Rumanian as part of a seven city tour across Canada. Hungarian Canadians have been sharing their past with Canada for more than 130 years, after the first settlers arrived in southern Saskatchewan in 1886.

"Hungary will always be grateful to Canada for accepting so many talented Hungarians over our shared history," said Bálint Ódor, Hungary's Ambassador to Canada. "We also remember and remind others for the historic link between our nations and the great contribution of the Hungarians for building a successful, prosperous Canada."

The single biggest influx of Hungarians was after the revolution of 1956 when Canada received almost 38,000 political refugees at numerous Canadian ports including Montreal and Halifax.

"Canada gave hope when hope in Hungary was stolen, Canada gave peace when my country was war-torn, Canada gave the prospect of a successful life when all Communism could offer was misery and oppression," Ódor said.

Today more than 300 thousand Canadians have Hungarian origins.

The Philharmonia was founded about 30 years ago in the Transylvanian Hungarian community of Szentegyháza, or Vlahita in Romania, under the leadership of choir leader Sándor Haáz.