"Fitting celebration of students' talents" says head Alan Howson

Parents, staff and students came together at Chiswick Community School for the Summer Arts Festival on Thursday July 9th. The evening was a celebration of the vast array of artistic, theatrical and musical talent at Chiswick Community School and already the school has been overwhelmed with requests for this to become an annual event.

The idea behind the Summer Arts Festival came from the Chiswick Community School’s award winning Parent Teacher Association. Working closely with the school they provided an army of volunteers to man the bar, ticket desk and decorate the school so for one night only it took on the guise of a Glastonbury or Glyndebourne.

The event was highly distinctive with the audience being able to move between a variety of stages with different acts playing simultaneously surrounded by an equally impressive range of visual art. Food was provided by local restaurant Pissaro’s, and for the bargain price of three pounds for the ticket, the audience was treated to a feast of high quality burgers and swordfish steak, bringing a real touch of gastronomic class to the event.

The Compere, Mr James Whiting, Deputy Headteacher, proved the consummate host as he introduced a programme fit to bursting with talent. This was an event that reminded us that, ‘whoever we are, culture and art it’s appreciation is shared by all.’ He conceded that, ‘the wealth of talent here makes my job very easy indeed, the students are doing all the hard work for me.’

Miss Olivia Raven, the subject leader for music worked closely with Joan-Ann Maynard, the curriculum leader for the arts to produce a programme as rich and as varied as the Students at Chiswick Community School. Music ran the gamut from Classical to Rock to Soul, with an impromptu beatbox tribute to Michael Jackson along the way. The audience were treated time and time again to show-stopping performance after show-stopping performance. A range of theatre performances were by turns funny, moving and in the case of a sixth form piece highly avant-garde. All of the twenty-two separate acts were of the very highest quality making it difficult to single any one act out.

The audience could stroll from acoustic performance in the recently refurbished quad through the art and photography galleries. The art was every bit as exciting as the music and theatre and praise must be given to the art and photography departments for exhibiting such a high standard of work.

Alan Howson, Headteacher, stated that ‘The Summer Arts Festival is a fitting celebration of students at Chiswick and a reminder that Chiswick Community School is a tremendous place to nurture talent. Amazingly, the standard keeps getting better and better and you wouldn’t think the bar can go any higher than this. However, something tells me that next year this will be better still.’

As the Parents and students left full of high spirits after two hours of top quality entertainment all saying they can’t wait for next year, it is difficult to disagree with Mr Howson.

July 15, 2009