The Holst Hall at JAGS is brilliant! One minute it’s filled with JACO, a community orchestra for  local professional and semi-professional players, the sounds of the marimba enveloping the concert audience, the next it’s home for a Foundation Schools’ Orchestra rehearsal , though you’re just as likely to come across a Y8 chamber group watched by a passing Reception class, the Symphony Orchestra, Jazz Night or one of the vibrant Senior House Music lunchtime concerts, with a programme encompassing  everything from accordion-playing, arias from Puccini, flute, guitar, cello, piano and performances from Queen and  Lady Gaga (if you use your imagination).

But nothing quite beats the impact of October’s PopFest. Lights, cameras, action….smoky haze, a starry screen and hundreds of enthusiastic supporters for 21 brave acts. If there have to be prizes, it’s special congratulations to Ella, Rose and Annette who came 1st in the audience vote for Cee Lo Green’s ‘Forget You’, Ese won 2nd place with Corinne Bailey-Rae’s ‘Just Like A Star’ and 3rd were the Athlettes with Alexandra Burke’s ‘Broken Heels’. JAGS music department deserves a prize too. Its vote went to My Pet Rock with an All-American Rejects number, ‘Gives You Hell’.

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