LATEST NEWS

Jazz and Blues Night

On Tuesday 26 March, we had our second ever Jazz and Blues night. This time we even had a Jazz Band - formed in September, we’ve been rehearsing every Tuesday and got seven songs ready for the night. In other performances, we had a wonderful home written Jazz standard from Eden Narh made for her GCSE music coursework, two songs from The Q and Harry Robinson, where we saw face-melting solos from all five of them. In the two halves we heard the Steel Bands do classics such as ‘Girl from Ipanema’ and ‘St Thomas’ but most of all the show was stolen by two stunning vocalists: Emma and Victoria who blew us all away with ‘The Villain I Appear To Be’ and ‘ Cry Me a River’. Special mention must also go to Youssef (Blue Bossa), Sophie (Blue Train), Henry (Superstition - seriously, watch it) and Zack (most of the songs) for their instrumental solos - many of them very well improvised.

Folk Songs and Shanties

The shortest but most wonderful show of the year. Our junior instrumentalists took to the small canteen to showcase what they’ve been learning over the last few months, including favourites such as ‘Drunken sailor’ and ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’, many of the instrumentalists have only been learning since January. Bravo. Huge thanks must go to the PTA - they’ve helped buy so many of the instruments that our students are now playing.

Community Gigs

There have been quite a lot of these so buckle up.

27 March - No Refund storm the City Barge with a sell out solo show - great performance (including a new song - Pale Picture Silhouette by Markos) and it has led to their selection as Chiswick School’s entry for Hounslow Battle of the Bands in June.

28 March - The Q and Blue Monday did their first joint show at the George and Devonshire. We said a very sad farewell to Jamie from The Q and the bands also played Hey Jude together at the end.

24 April - Cronos and Invasion did their first City Barge show as joint-headline acts. Highlights included Sk8er Boi, Sweet Child O’Mine, and solos from Roxy, Keira, Willow and Alba.

29 April - The Steel Bands perform a set at Age UK Wandsworth. Afterwards, we got this email: Wow what can we say ????? The Steel Pans group this morning were outstanding; They are a credit to your school! Our service users were so happy to hear them.

1 May - Harry put on his own community open mic night at the Queen’s Head. We also had gig debuts from Manny and Zion.

8 May - Dark Riders and No Refund teamed up to do a joint show at the George and Devonshire, all by themselves. No teachers helping, just 15 Year 8 kids (with parental supervision, of course) setting up lots of equipment and putting on a packed out show.

13 May - The Jazz band performed at Chiswick Jazz Festival. There may be bias but we’re pretty sure that we got a louder applause than the professional group before us.