Glee Day at Dulwich College

On 5th July a dozen JAGS girls from Years 10 and 12 ‘rocked up’ and then ‘got on down’ at the inaugural South London Schools’ Learning Partnership Glee Day hosted by Dulwich College. Along with another 50 or so students from 6 local state and independent schools, we learned to harmonise and extemporise under the inspiring leadership of two choir trainers accompanied by awesomely talented pianists and a guitarist.

Rehearsing from 9am to 4pm, we finished with a public performance in the Great Hall in front of parents and friends. Starting with the classic “Lean On Me”, we grooved through Fleetwood Mac, Primal Scream and Labi Siffre before finishing with a medley of songs popularised by the American Glee TV series. Perhaps the most challenging but rewarding  number was Ken Burton’s gospel style “My Father’s House” which was tackled in 4 part harmony with key changes, breakdowns, outro and much clapping on the back-beat (we learnt a lot of essential technical terms too).

Thanks must go to Dr Storey at DC (himself amazing on the ivories) for organising such a successful event, which, all agreed, should be repeated next year.

To learn more about SSLP visit: http://www.jags.org.uk/community_links/sslp/

5 September 2011