Al­though every ses­sion is jam-packed with ac­tion and fun, Au­gust 13 was a par­tic­u­lar­ly ex­cit­ing day for the stu­dents at the Dig­i­cel-spon­sored School of Rock.Not­ed per­form­ers Isaac Black­man, Gayazette, Joint Pop, Make it Hap­pen and Michael O'Brien put on a con­cert for the stu­dents, in­tro­duc­ing them to a wide range of gen­res, in­clud­ing hip-hop and lo­cal rock fu­sion.

De­scribed as a big roots/rock ex­plo­sion by Nigel Ro­jas, head­mas­ter and lead vo­cal­ist and gui­tarist of pop­u­lar lo­cal rock band, Or­ange Sky, said the per­for­mances were meant to ex­pose the stu­dents to the wide range of fu­sion gen­res that in­cor­po­rate lo­cal in­stru­ments and style.Ear­li­er guest per­form­ers have in­clud­ed Cu­ri­ous Ringo and Jah Im­mor­tal, who ex­posed the stu­dents to rap­so, and Der­ron El­lies who ac­quaint­ed them with the in­no­v­a­tive blend of rock and pan fu­sion.

These con­certs are ex­pect­ed to prove valu­able to the young mu­si­cians, who are at a cru­cial stage of their cre­ative de­vel­op­ment. Cur­rent­ly in prepa­ra­tion for the fi­nals, the bands are tak­ing shape in ad­vance of the fi­nale to be held on Sep­tem­ber 10 at An­chor­age, Ch­aguara­mas. For the next three weeks, they will be re­hears­ing at Ques­tion Mark En­ter­tain­ment, putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on what promis­es to be a most en­ter­tain­ing show.Ro­jas, in par­tic­u­lar, is look­ing for­ward to see­ing how well his tal­ent­ed pupils have de­vel­oped on the big day. Prais­ing the nat­ur­al tal­ent of the youth of T&T, Ro­jas urges the con­tin­ued "cul­ti­va­tion of their hearts and minds in an artis­tic di­rec­tion as it will cre­ate a shel­ter for many."