A glee club from a Harrow secondary school have won a prize at the Jack Petchey Glee Club Challenge.
On Sunday, March 3, Nower Hill High School, from Harrow, won the Artistic Team prize of £500 at the grand finals at the London Palladium. The prize is awarded to the group that the artistic coaching team felt has made the most artistic, personal and team progress throughout the programme.
The show saw 274 young performers compete in front of a theatre of 2,200 people as well as celebrity judges, including West End performer John Partridge, actors Daniel Boys and Tamzin Outhwaite, and Eurovision 2018 UK contestant SuRie.
The Jack Petchey Glee Club Challenge is the largest youth glee competition in the UK, with over 1,000 young people taking part this year. Young people aged 11-25 were encouraged to sign up to the challenge and develop their performing arts skills. The final groups had previously competed in regional finals and also taken part in boot camps, where they received free training from industry professionals. At the grand final a total of £5,000 was given away in prizes.
Alicia Johnson, Head of Music at Nower Hill High School, said: “It taught them that hard work and perseverance will get you where you want to be, but also that you have to take on advice from others and learn from it. We spoke afterwards and said it’s the first time we entered the competition – to get this award is so promising and it shows them how much they’ve improved since we’ve started, it was an incredible achievement for them.”
Groups first applied to the programme in summer 2018 and 39 groups were selected to take part. They each went through boot camps where they were put through their paces by industry professionals in performance, vocals and choreography before competing in Regional Finals in Dartford, Chelmsford, Enfield and Barking.
Head Judge John Partridge said: “This is my seventh year in the Glee Club Challenge. I am always so inspired. They work tirelessly to put this together, but it’s one shot, one night, that’s what I live for as well, that’s what I do in my daily life, so I come here for inspiration.”
Actor Daniel Boys, said: “This is my third year being a judge, I absolutely love it – I feel very honoured to be asked again. I just love sitting there in the audience amongst all the parents and friends, just witnessing absolutely talented kids. There’s nothing more exciting for me than seeing stars of the future and they really are stars of the future.”
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