On
the last 20th December, we celebrated our traditional Christmas Concert. In
this occasion we were visited by two professional jazz musicians, these being,
Jesús Gea (double bass) and Raúl Pérez (drums).
Over
the first part of the show they played, together with our teacher Javier
Bermejo at the piano, some easy examples of the use of improvisation in jazz.
They started playing the well-known song "Happy Birthday", and
improvised along with it. The purpose of this song was to differentiate the
main melody ("head" in jazz) from the improvisation itself.
Afterwards, some students were asked to play the instruments (xylophones) with
the band, improvising on the famous jazz tune "C Jam Blues", by the
composer Duke Ellington.
The
second part of the event was dedicated entirely to pop songs and Christmas
carols. The students played the main role of the scene through singing. Solo,
duo and choral performances of a great level took place in front of a public
formed by 250 people, mostly First and Second year of ESO students. This young
audience listened carefully to the great performances of the soloists: Thalía
Abdeljabbar, Jeniffer Soto, Sofía García, Maria Dolores Férez, Georgina
Martinez, Enrique Mancilla and Jessica Beltrán. The Bilingual students sang in
English, while Jessica Beltran delighted everybody with a passionate version of
the traditional "Madre en la puerta hay un niño", in flamenco style.
The
words of Jesus Gea describe the great feeling of that morning: " Really
good activity, according to the audience’s enthusiasm. Great job done by the
Music Department, which resulted in the high musical level and perfect pitching
achieved by the students and their commitment".
We ended the concert with the great John Lenon's
"So this is Christmas" song, which was sung by our Choir. While
singing this great piece, all of us realized the hard work of the previous
weeks had been worth it.
(Text written by our CLIL teacher
Javier Bermejo)