The Pacific Rim Children's Chorus Festival is attractive for local fans and national participants alike.

For Honolulu fans of choral music, it's a yearly opportunity to catch a handful of national children's choruses, right here in our backyard, and to hear music with an Asian-Pacific and Polynesian connection. For the youths ages 5 through 18 who travel here to participate, it's a fun-filled week of making new friends and soaking in the music and culture of Pacific Rim countries.

The festival makes a 5th annual go-round this weekend with "Voices on the Wind," public concerts Saturday and Sunday featuring the 300-plus voice Pacific Rim Youth Chorus. The chorus hosts members of nine visiting choruses from the Mainland and Canada, as well as singers from the festival-hosting Hawai'i Youth Opera Chorus.

The programs feature choral selections from the Philippines, China, Korea, Japan, Hawai'i and Polynesia, accompanied by special guests.

Guest performers include keiki dance ensemble Halau Hula Olana, Kenny Endo's Taiko Center of the Pacific Youth Group, British Columbia's Langley 'Ukulele Ensemble and others.

Festival founder Wanda Gereben calls the vocal traditions of Pacific Rim countries "quite fascinating and interesting." But she started the annual event because this music isn't easy for chorale educators and choir directors on the Mainland to find.

"I wanted an opportunity for advanced children's choruses to come and learn this music and have a taste of some of the wonderful traditions and cultures that were here," she said.

Rehearsals started last Octorber, when each choir was sent a packet of music selections — including a pronunciation guide.

After visiting choirs arrived on O'ahu earlier this week, they blended to rehearse as the combined Pacific Rim Youth Chorus, under artistic director Henry H. Leck.

Chorus members also spent much of this week learning about the ethnicities responsible for the music they've rehearsed.

Visits to the Polynesian Cultural Center, meetings with native speakers, and chats with Korean traditional fan dancers, Filipino folk dancers and Japanese taiko drummers included fun projects designed to educate.

"I think it opens their eyes wider," said Gereben, of the festival's effect on its participants. "Young people are egocentric. That's their jobs being adolescents — to think of their world as the only world.

"What this does is gently open the world to them a little, so that they see a bigger picture. They see that people of different colors, languages, foods and interests are just people.

"They get to try it, taste it and interact."

The annual festival has proven so attractive that youth choir directors nationwide have booked all participating slots through 2008.

"I really thought there would be just one," said Gereben, explaining the festival's unexpectedly fast growth. "But I had so many (choirs) apply that I filled up 2002 before I ever did the first in 2001.

"I guess I was lucky, wasn't I?"