THIS Anzac Day, Victoria Point singer Lily Forbes will honour her ancestors at a dawn service at the site where two significant World War I battles were fought.
As a part of Brisbane choir Voices of Birralee, the Faith Lutheran College year 12 student will embark on a three-week European tour accompanied by more than 70 other singers.
The choir will visit Austria, Croatia and Italy before travelling to France to perform at the Anzac Day dawn service at the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, the site of two major battles during World War I.
The group will also visit Paris, where Lily will lay a wreath at the Arc De Triomphe.
"I feel very honoured to be able to do it," Lily said.
"I'm doing it on behalf of Voices of Birralee and Australia too, I guess."
As she lays the wreath and performs at the dawn service, Lily will be commemorating the lives of three of her ancestors who were killed in action during World War I.
Two of them are buried in France, less than an hour from where Voices of Birralee will perform.
"I feel like I get to honour the people that have fought and that didn't get recognition for it," she said.
"It's thanking them for how much freedom we have today."
Mother Michelle Forbes said the tour would bring Lily closer to the experiences of her ancestors.
"I think once you get there it's the realisation of everything that has happened," she said.
"When they're getting up so early in frigid cold conditions they realise that people fighting there had to go through that every day."
The performance on Anzac Day will mark the finale of a five-year partnership between Birralee and the Department of Veterans' Affairs, with the choir singing at various World War I centenary services between 2015 and 2019.
