Video of Interest

Steelpan Rehearsals Resumes from TODAY

Students and parents are reminded that our well established steelpan orchestra will resume the regular rehearsals from today, 25th September 2014. Consent forms were sent to students. Please note that students will be part of the orchestra only when the permission is granted from the parent / guardian. Practice day and time remains the same, Mondays and Wednesdays 3:30 to 5:00. 

Students need to be present at all rehearsals, as students who miss rehearsal will not be allowed to perform with the group and could result in being terminated from the orchestra.

Practice Update

Due to scheduling issues, from this term, all musical groups' rehearsal will be scheduled for after school. Students are asked to register this week for Mr Jeon to start scheduling rehearsals. The band rehearsal started from Monday 1st September. 

Welcome Back

New academic year officially commenced on September 1st in St. Lucia. Music department welcomes new students in form 1 and returning students to Gros Islet Secondary School. Let's Play Music

National Competitions Cancelled…

Today I bring you a sad disappointing news. There is a possibility that our National Choir Competition and National Solo Singing Competition could be cancelled due to lack of financial support. However, there will be a music festival which school can choose to send a choir / instrumental / solo singer / combination of these groups to represent the school. Schools are told to do 1 piece. Festival will be held at district level first and the top performances will be selected for a grand festival as part of Nobel Laureate Activity.

We will be represented by combined group which comprises members from choir, live band, orchestra, solo singers and hopefully steel pan. Emails have been sent to students who will be performing. If you are seeing this message please check your email and learn your parts as we will be resuming intensive practice from 1st of September, 2014.

Term 3 2014

We had another successful term.

For 2nd time in a row, our music department did fantastic job at the graduation ceremony. We showcased live band, orchestra, choir and solo singers during the graduation.

We also took part in National Calypso Competition. We were supposed to take part in Soca competition which didn’t take place.

We were also faced with many challenges with scheduling, financial support, instruments and equipment maintenance. Due to these challenges and other reasons, we were forced to cut on our steelpan rehearsals and our well received and highly anticipated parents evening. As it stands now, all our programs should be back to normal from 1st September 2014.

We are back

I want to apologize to our dedicated followers for our delay in our update. Thank you for your continuous support and we are now back will be able to keep you updated from now.

Calypso Songs for 2014

Some of our songs for our upcoming Calypso / Soca Show 2014

Le We Go An Party by Jeremiah



Look At Da Man by Juan



Respect by Tarick AKA TA

GISS Calypso Show

At Gros Islet Secondary School, Mr C.Y. Jeon created a structure where we prepare our students a term before national competition. This model is all about creating or hosting our own events that is similar to the national event a term before. Other schools have been encouraged to follow this model.

National Calypso Competition is in term 3 which means our own school calypso show is on term 2. This time around, social studies department headed by Ms Alexander is working together with us to make this event happen. So far we have 5 calypsos and 1 power soca almost complete. We are working on 1 more power soca and 2 groovy soca. Be prepared as we are about to make you cry, laugh and challenge your thinking with our sweet melodies and strong lyrics.

Gros Islet Secondary ON Fire

Gros Islet Secondary School is becoming the talk of the town. We have made it to finals in every music competition so far this year and our performances is being described as unique, different and extraordinary by many. 

 

Finals of National solo competition took place Tuesday 26th February 2014. This year's theme was to sing songs from 80 / 90s. Whitney Abisque, one of our choir member represented the school in this year's solo competition. For reminder, she placed 2nd in our G factor.

Whitney sang "I have nothing" by Whitney Houston and oh boy, she silenced the critique with her complete performance. As one of students from other school said, "I felt as if I was dreaming".

Congratulations to Whitney for all the hard work and efforts she put towards this competition.

 

Our music groups are active and already performed at various functions this term, we welcome the new group "marching band" to the music department. Therefore we now have 6 groups for students to join; choir, live band, steel pan, orchestra, singers and marching band.

 

Whitney Abisique received a trophy for placing second. Again congratulations to Whitney. Pictures coming soon

Congratulations to Sharks House

Congratulations to our shark house for winning this years sports. Music and Sports go hand in hand and we all witnessed in our sports meet. Bravo to our marching band for staying late hours after school to prepare for sports meet as well as independence rally. Pictures coming soon.

Happy Independence

As part of celebrating 35th independence of St. Lucia, our music department played a crucial part in both District rally and school rally. Job well done to our choir, band, orchestra, sound engineers, steel pan and our first Marching Band. The events were very harmonious and entertaining. Pictures coming soon.

Bravo Gros Islet Secondary School Choir

Congratulations to our hard working choir members. We placed 4th during our second year of participating which is way surpass our initial objective - to make it to finals. You deserve a good rest now. There has been significant increase in our quality compared to last year. There are a lot of potential within us and can not wait for us to maximize our potential. So let us make it happen and continue our practice throughout the year. 

I also want to recognise Mr CY Jeon and C Francis for the arrangement of the songs and working with the choir. It was not easy working and conduct choir during break, lunch, after school and even when we are home. It was well worth it as our school received the best arrangement award. 

We are the CHAMPION in progress. Students learned so much a part from singing. During our rehearsals we faced many challenges but at the end none of the members gave up. We learned few important life lessons such as team work, helping each other, discipline, commitment and dedication which is why we are true champions. Thank you choir members, parents who supported the students, principal and vice principal who passed during couple of our rehearsals for moral support and teachers it was easy for me to teach the choir members about team work because we are a great team. Thank you everybody and be prepared for next year.

Choir Semi final song track

Please listen to the track and sing along. you can download the track as well. Let make it happen.

Do you remember this?

Our 2012 Gros Islet Secondary School Choir

Merry Christmas and Happy New year

We had a very busy and highly successful term. I am really pleased with the progress we have made thus far. We performed at number of places and had to turn down quite a few because of scheduling issues. 

I would like to encourage students to keep up this high team spirit and mind set to keep trying. Please take good rest and enjoy the holidays as you will be going through another tough training next term. 

Please don't be discouraged by the pressure of this training. I am certain that those students who endure and complete these trainings until form 5 will have something that nobody can take away from you. New students will join, some will quit but quitters never win. So far we have been excellent. I am looking for students who can persevere. 

This term, we achieved all the things we planned for. We had our annual G factor, Choir made it semi finals and hosted District 1 Christmas tour. We were asked to perform many places such as meeting of health ministers of OECS, universal child day ceremony, youth symposium, private school Christmas events, collaboration with school of music at Cuban embassy, live rehearsal at serenity park and more. 

Choir learnt 4 songs in all, steel pan learnt 6 songs in all, band learnt 2 songs, orchestra 1 song and singers learnt too many songs. If we keep it up like this, we will be releasing our CD sooner than expected. 

Bravo to students who made sacrifices in their playing time, facebook time, family time and sometimes even studying time. I know some of you went beyond your expectation to make this music program exciting and successful. Trust me I know and I will remember these stuff. 

Over the holidays, I would like for choir members to go through the song "forget you" by ceelo green. Band and orchestra to go through "black man come out to party" and "oye como va" by Carlos Santana. 

So to end my message, Have your a merry little Christmas and This Christmas start planning your weekly schedule. All I want for Christmas is for you to be motivated and come fresh to learn more next term. I wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy new year.

Pre G Factor Message

As we are getting ready to witness the best show in the history of Gros Islet Secondary School, I would like to say to the participants that remember the tips and advice from masterclasses and rehearsals, be confident and proud that people are paying $5 to see you perform. Give them your best shot. Enjoy your performance. Balance your time properly so that you can win G factor and pass all your exams. You reached this far and we are very happy with your progress, Job Well Done.

Who will be the next G Factor!?!

Congratulations to the Choir

Our choir participated in the National Choir Competition and made it to the Semi finals. Semi finals will take place in January. Our choir performed "Rock Away" by Beres Hammond. Bass and tenor singing main melody through out the song. Sopranos and altos on background vocals during verse and 3 part harmonies during choruses. Then we end with an a capella of the last chorus. There were total silence for few seconds then everybody started to scream. They did very well and all the sacrifices and hard work paid off. Now they are getting ready for Christmas Community Outreach Tour. After the performance, we were approached by the police not to arrest us for singing so good but to ask us to perform for one the event they are planning to celebrate "universal child day". We also received complements from Mr Jason Joseph saying that this was the first time he heard the choir sang with such confidence. Bravo to all the members of the choir.

Master class with TC Brown

As the week comes to an end, we invited TC Brown to host our master class session on Friday 15th November. Mr Brown gave students some solid knowledge of whole aspect of a performer. His main message was PREPARATION. Preparing everything from the hair style to the color of your socks. Planning every movement and practising. Message which my students really needed. Thanks to Mr Brown for interactive informative session. He even performed for our students and gave them alot of tips. Our principal, a huge fan of TC Brown took special time to join us in our master class. I would like to take this moment to recognise and say a special thank you to the principal Mrs Charles who supported and is still supporting music program at the school. I know music has changed many students' lives and is and will change many more, all this because of the support of our principal. 7 more days before the final round of G factor, the competition is tough as everybody is raising their quality at practice. 

Master Class with Boo Hinkson

Another Master class session was hosted on 14th November. This time it was Ronald Boo Hinkson. Mr Hinkson is known as a legend in St. Lucia for all he has achieved through music. It was really touching. First thing Mr Hinkson mentioned when he arrived. "Opportunities are there in music. Society looks at music as something that has no future as they put more value towards business, science, etc. but I did music. I had a job but I quit because that's not what I wanted to do. Music is what I wanted to do. I drive Mercedes Benz, I have my house on most expensive place in St. Lucia, I have travelled all over the world. I just came from white house. and ALL OF THIS WAS POSSIBLE BECAUSE I CHOSE MUSIC." These words really reached my heart. To this I want to say to my students, don't give up. you might not see the benefit of your actions now, there will be tough times but don't give up. If you feel the passion to the depth of your heart, don't stop, don't give up. One day you will reach that place. Mr Hinkson was passionate from the beginning to the end. Students had a blast as they conversed with Mr Boo. Again Thank you Mr Hinkson for your time and this session. Pictures coming soon