JCS Memoirs: by Peter Gritton – Director of Music 2012-23

“When I arrived at JAGS in 2012, I was not only blown away by the music-making of the pupils but also immediately impressed by how the Choral Society (JCS) and the Community Orchestra (JACO) each supported school music in their different ways.
In my first week at JAGS, I remember standing in front of the music library shelves gawping at the repertoire covered by my predecessors Rupert Bond and Leigh O’Hara. Any Choral Society that could stage Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony was made of fine stuff! From that early realisation, I knew I had a wonderful tradition to maintain.

“From Day One, I was struck by the friendliness of Choral Society members and, together with the Committee chaired at that stage by Sue Whittaker, JCS responded positively to every musical challenge put in front of them. My first year whizzed by with some seasonal Messiah choruses at Christmas, then Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and Hymn to St Cecilia to celebrate his centenary in 2013, completing the season with Handel and Purcell accompanied by baroque instruments. The Choral Society’s versatility was superb and, importantly, excelled in its raison d’être to allow the JAGS pupils to sing the full-blown choral music they would otherwise have not been able to. Southwark Cathedral had been booked for the Christmas Concert by Leigh before I arrived at JAGS, for which I am so grateful because it initiated an annual pilgrimage at such a beautiful time of year. My stand-out memories are Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols and Rutter’s When Icicles Hang. We even put on Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors in costume one year!

“An annual Christmas memory is bringing the orchestral musicians of JAGS together with the combined choirs to perform my freshly made orchestrations of carols. In fact, the appetite for carols so strong at JAGS that I founded a yearly ‘orchestrated’ Community Carols event in the last week of the school term, providing an opportunity for the Choral Society to join forces with the Community Orchestra, thereby enjoying the Christmas Concert repertoire one more time and having a blow-out on a host of favourite carols to the aroma of mulled wine. We raised thousands of pounds over the decade for a range of charities.

“The Spring repertoire was a glorious array of masterpieces performed on our annual visit to St John’s, Smith Square, again combining with JAGS musicians. Stand-out experiences were our ‘surround-sound’ performance of Tallis’s Spem in alium where the combined forces of JAGS and JCS encircled the audience entirely, occupying left and right balconies as well as the rear audience seating and stage area; the two scintillating performances we all gave of Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens – JAGS community music-making at its best with JAGS symphony orchestra, Holst Choir and JCS combining in full glory. Occasionally, there were one-off performances of major works elsewhere during the Spring, leading to the St John’s repertoire being relatively compact but always capable of packing a punch. I recall with affection a multi-choir Elijah at Blackheath Halls with Leigh O’Hara, Verdi’s Requiem and Britten’s War Requiem in the Royal Festival Hall with the massed forces of Foundation Schools, not forgetting a concert performance of Bizet’s Carmen for Chris Fifield in All Saints, West Dulwich. One May, JCS spent a long weekend in York where in 48 hours we somehow managed to give a lunchtime recital, sing at a wedding and a Sunday morning service. For another extended weekend, a posse of JCS members flew out to Italy to hook up for a couple of performances with the biennial JAGS choral and orchestral tour.

“Through the Spring Term, JCS would also begin our preparation of material for the Summer Concert usually held in mid-June. Gradually through my time at JAGS, JACO and JCS so that we could tackle full-blooded choral epics regularly. The Summer Concert had traditionally been held in the Holst Hall at JAGS but moved across into the Vaughan Williams Auditorium on the completion of the new Community Music Centre in 2018-19. JAGS is forever indebted to the vision of Marion Gibbs who as Head at JAGS for over 20 years strove for a community music building, an initiative only completed during the tenure of her successor Sally-Anne Huang, whose idea it was to name the auditorium after Vaughan Williams. Like Gustav Holst, RVW had taught at JAGS in the early 20th century, so this was most fitting. There really was only going to be one work that could adequately break in the new performing space – Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony.

“Eleven years at JAGS fairly raced by and now exist as a treasure trove of musical memories made all the more pleasurable by the friendships created through music. There really was never a dull moment, not even during the pandemic when we met online every week without fail. I thank JCS from the bottom of my heart for being a central part of my musical vision for community music and always willing to participate in my community compositions such as the Great Big Little Symphony in St John’s Smith Square, Trip to Mars (at the speed of light) together with the sung finale of my Great Big Orchestra to open the CMC. JAGS was a truly inspirational place to make music for the final decade of my teaching career.”