When Tauranga's primary schools take to the stage at Baycourt next week for their annual music festival there will be a familiar face missing.

Rex Tomich has been the festival's drummer since 2003 and this year was supposed to be his final festival. Sadly, he died in July before he could attend the festival and receive his life membership of the Tauranga Primary Schools Music Festival Society.

Co-musical director Andrea Meredith brought Rex on board with her when she became the event's pianist in 2003.

'It used to be that all they had for the festival was a pianist. I stepped in to play in 2003 and asked the committee if we could have bass and drums as well and Rex played for us ever since.

'He just loved it – it was the highlight of his year. This was going to be his last year and we were going to give him life membership of the society.”

The festival has been running since 1956 and was formed by a group of teachers who wanted to ensure Tauranga children could enjoy the experience of making music together.

Thirty-one schools will take to the Baycourt stage this year across five nights. This year's theme is ‘It's About Time' and songs will include old favourites such as ‘Rock Around the Clock' and ‘Yesterday Once More', through to ‘Time After Time' and ‘A Thousand Years' by Christina Perri.

Students will perform 10 songs as a massed choir and each individual school choir will present one or two songs of their choice based on the theme.

The festival runs from September 3-7 at Baycourt's Addison Theatre from 7pm-9pm.

Tickets are $14 each plus service fees and are available from the box office at Baycourt or online at www.ticketek.co.nz