The School Concert not only annually awes and delights its audience: it also serves as a useful musical primer!  From classical piano pieces through Irish harp compositions, from heavy metal thunder through avant-garde originals, the concert this year once again ranged across the gamut of musical formats and styles, with the only constant being the excellence of performance.

Anything new?  Well, Ms. Fay and Ms. DeBhal, our resident musical maestros, went for a more efficient programme this year.  Yes, we enjoyed the Woodstock-like rambling line-ups of years past (and the accompanying 26 minute tambourine solos) but the genteel residents of Ballsbridge were getting fed up with the ad hoc camping, hemp stalls and double-parking caravans.

This year, the music was as ethereal and imaginative as ever but the organisation and management of the show made it seem a bit like the annual conference of the Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands.  A great combination: beautiful music and an early dismissal!  Check out the stills above and extensive high-lights below.  And, parents, please do not listen to just your own prodigy progeny: enjoy them all. The talent below would rival any Voice or XFactor final!