Hosts First-Ever Spring Music Festival Headlined by QBS Radio Top 10 Singer Faraway Martin
GEMS American Academy Qatar Hosts Its First-Ever Spring Music Festival Headlined by QBS Radio Top 10 Singer, Faraway Martin! by Justin Hamza Tyler
March 2023
At GEMS American Academy Qatar (GAAQ), the development of unique talents and abilities is essential to prepare motivated, engaged students to reach their full potential. Teaching to develop talent within every student is one of the learning tenets of the school and their recent Spring Music Festival provided a community venue for students to showcase their musical ability on the main stage during this event.
Headlined by GAAQ music teacher and QBS Radio’s Top 10 singer, Faraway Martin, their school community as well as guests from Doha were able to listen to a diverse genre of musical selections from the school’s Middle School Band as well as their award-winning High School Rock Band! The festive event, held on Saturday, March 4th from 1 – 4 pm, was a collaboration between GAAQ teacher Martin Farragher, administration and the school’s Parent Association aimed at providing a fair-like, musical venue for student talent to artistically.
Within the month leading up to the event, students volunteered to offer various activities and booths for festival guests to enjoy. These student-led activities included face painting, water balloon throw, bake sale, henna, stencil painting, basketball, self-portrait stall and a “guess how many” table. Funds collected from these activities will be donated directly to Qatar Charity to help support the earthquake victims of Türkiye and Syria. Also, middle school musicians and the band played various musical selections while the High School Rock Band - the two-time winners of the National Battle of the Bands competition and a recent 2nd place awardee – thrilled the crowd with their quality singing, guitar wizardry, driving basslines, solid keyboarding and instinctive drumming feel.
One of the highlights of the festival was QBS Radio’s Top 10 singer, Faraway Martin. Also known as Martin Farragher, he has been a GAAQ elementary music teacher since 2015. Throughout this time, his music catalog and recognition has been steadily buzzing within the Middle East where he recently performed in front of 40,000 fans at the music fan zones during the 2022 World Cup held in Qatar. However, many of his fans are also students. As a result, he was determined to create an event where his young fans could enjoy his music, in addition to performances from student musicians, at a family-friendly music festival. “Each week, I play at many locales around Doha, but some of my most passionate fans and supporters have never seen me play live. Because of this, it was only natural for me to create an opportunity for this group to see me perform along with fantastically-talented GAAQ students,” said Farragher.
Overall, nearly 1,200 people came out and supported the school’s first-ever musical festival. This was GAAQ’s first spring fair event since 2019, so the well-attended affair is an indication of the school’s commitment to cultivating the unique talents and abilities of their students – as part of their core belief in the overall holistic development (academic, social, emotional, physical and cognitive learning) of each child.
