Monday 18 February 2019 GSAL Arts 19 Festival of Creativity will showcase the many talents of our pupils, staff and the wider arts community during the first week of March. The biennial festival, a feature on the school calendar since 2015, opens on the evening of Friday 1 March with GSAL Jazz Club. The following week will be packed with drama, music, art and all things creative throughout the school. Jazz Club features our most talented student singers performing with a professional band in an atmospheric jazz club setting. Profits from the event will be donated to the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. The festival centrepiece is the Choral and Concerto Concert at Leeds Minster on Wednesday 6 March. The programme includes movements from Grieg’s piano concerto, Marcello’s oboe concerto in D minor and Ronald Binge’s saxophone concerto, performed by student soloists, accompanied by an orchestra made up of pupils and professional musicians. To complete the concert, the school choir, augmented by staff and parents, will sing Fauré’s Requiem. Drama activities will include workshops on stage combat and make up techniques. On Friday 8 March at 17:00, students will perform their own original drama devised with professional theatre practitioners, using the stimulus of a musical piece Espionage by GSAL’s composer in residence Stephen Webster. The festival will close with a flourish on Saturday 9 March with GSAL Gumbo! named after the state dish of Louisiana, a vibrant, colourful stew of many ingredients and influences. You can therefore expect an evening of raucous rhythmic revelry from a variety of performers including GSAL’s jazz groups and big band, as well as some of our jazz instrumental teachers. GSAL Principal Mrs Sue Woodroofe said: “At a moment when the creative curriculum is under serious threat nationally, we are proud that music and the arts will permeate all areas of school during our festival. We recognise that our pupils will need to be creative thinkers in whichever discipline they pursue their future careers.” Follow the festival on social media via the hashtags #GSALArts19 and #GSALcreates. General News Whole School Community
