Miss Hill
Co-curricular activities
On Sunday 16 June, we hosted our annual Summer Jazz Concert. The concert featured performances from the KES/KEHS Big Band, Swing Band, soloists, small bands, and professional guest musicians. The evening was a huge success and kicked off ArtsFest 2024 in style! Performances included the work of Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and Thelonious Monk – a fantastic range of Jazz classics.
From the Monday, the Upper Fourth’s digital artwork was displayed on screens around the school, showcasing the Photoshop skills they had been learning in lessons. We also saw the launch of the Thirds photography competition, hosted a Theatre Design Exhibition, featuring many props and designs from previous fantastic school productions, and held the first lunchtime film screening of the week. Minari, a semi-autobiographical take on upbringing of the Director, Lee Isaac Chung, follows a family of South Korean immigrants who move to rural Arkansas during the 1980s.
Tuesday saw another two film screenings, this time with Inside Out (which proved to be a huge hit!) and Ma Vie de Courgette. Our talented poets and musicians attended a workshop with ‘Tell It To The Music’, an experimental space where the poetry and music communities merge. We are very grateful to Vato Klemera and Amy Coates for running the workshops.
Tuesday lunchtime also included a fantastic talk from Roger Shanon, who co-edited the book ‘Leonora Carrington: Living Legacies’. Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was an English born artist and writer who received much critical acclaim and achieved stellar status in Mexico, where she lived and worked for most of her life, having fled Europe via Spain in tormenting circumstances. The talk proved to be a fascinating look into a range of artistic, scholarly and creative responses to the realm of Carrington, emphasising how her work becomes a medium, and a provocation for new thinking in the world.
Wednesday began with Drama and Psychology joining forces for a screening and discussion of ‘The Effect’ by Lucy Prebble. Some of you may also know the playwright from her recent television hit, ‘Succession’. We also held plenty of other screenings at lunchtime, including Mean Girls, the second part of Ma Vie de Courgette, and the stop-motion film Bonjour le Monde.
On the Thursday, we hosted a Lunchtime Recital in the Ruddock Hall. Connie gave a wonderful performance of Prokofiev’s Sonata No.2 (Mvt.I) which added a brilliant musical aspect to ArtsFest.
Drama also hosted a House Monologue Slam, where students performed an array of fascinating monologues to a live audience.
The final day of ArtsFest was celebrated with our ‘Sound & Vision’ concert in the Ruddock Hall. The concert was an evening of music, film, art and poetry, and featured chamber ensembles, live artwork, performances from Spoken Word Club and classwork form Upper Fourth music lessons. We were using the concert as a fundraising event for The Royal National Institute for Deaf People. If anyone still wishes to donate please do so here: Donate – RNID
Congratulations to the following students who performed: The Faulty Quartet (Priyamvada, violin; Sophia, violin; Nayan, viola; Esmee, cello), The Toot Suite Trio (Mandy, flute; Anya, flute; Esmee, oboe), Screenplay Strings Quartet (Li, violin; Erin, violin; Siyua, viola; Beatrice, cello), The Ghibli Sextet (Derwent, harp; Nandhika, flute; Priyamvada, violin; Lulu, violin; Emmy, viola), ‘Tell It To The Music’ performers (Musicians – Priyamvada, Rebecca, Srilakshmi, Rebecca, Derwent, Sissi, Connie; Poets – Aneesha, Japmeh, Ashrita; Artist – Violet), and Lower School Choir members. One of our poets from the ‘Tell It To The Music’ item, Ashrita, had this to say about the event:
On Friday 21 June, students were given the chance to celebrate their peers’ work and delight in wonderful music whilst raising funds for The Royal National Institute for Deaf People. Having performed Spoken Word poetry myself, I cannot even put pen to paper to illustrate what an incredibly purposeful and liberating feeling it was having live music and art bring to life my own vision; it was truly unbelievable to discover what my work had inspired others to create. One of the most beautiful things was when Violet, KEHS’ next Van Gogh, created a poignant sketch to encapsulate my poem’s mood, and I am grateful to have collaborated with her on this and am so excited with how it turned out. Most of all, the feeling one gets once you perform something as emotive and vulnerable as poetry can never be described in words and the Tell it To the Music Band provided such an atmosphere and environment in which we felt safe and could speak our truth, so for that reason I will forever be indebted to them and all those whose efforts went into making that night possible.
Curricular activities
As part of the Latin curriculum, the Upper Fourth studied mosaic making earlier this year. Mosaics were used by the Romans to cover floors, walls and arches in public and private buildings and were particularly suitable for decorating floors as they were very hard wearing. During ArtsFest week, the students had the opportunity to try making mosaics for themselves, using a range of dried beans and lentils.
- Faith in Humanity: No to racism, yes to respect.
- Looking Beyond
- How do we envisage God?
- Wise Words? Holy Words?
- Green faith, green future?
- Why do animals matter?
