On Saturday, September 28, 2019, Grandview Heights High School was host to a day long symposium for French educators titled Quebec In and For the 21st Century: Art, Culture, and Innovation. The symposium featured the multi-talented performer and education entrepreneur Gregory Charles. GHHS students delighted Charles by wearing Gregory a Grandview t-shirts and waving French Quebec mini-flags while singing along throughout the his free concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday evening.
The guest speaker, Québécois performer Charles, spoke about the important role that music has played in affirming Quebec’s distinct linguistic and cultural identity as well as his new virtual program, Je suis Québécois, an online tool designed to help new immigrants integrate better into Quebec’s society.
Charles is a prize-winning classical pianist, conductor and choral enthusiast turned singer-songwriter, who has performed all over the world and with the greatest names in show business. This musical genius, born to parents of Trinindadian and French Canadian descent, has toured with fellow Canadian Céline Dion and has also sung with the likes of Pavarotti, Streisand, Garth Brooks and Stevie Wonder. His performances are always an exhilarating, mind-boggling, heart-racing, memorable – and interactive – affair.
The symposium was in collaboration with the the American Council for Quebec Studies, the Québec Government Office in Chicago, The Ohio State University, and Denison University, the Grandview Heights High School (GHHS) French program.