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St Edward’s:
150 Years
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As instrumental numbers have risen at St Edward’s, so has
the ability to produce strong smaller ensembles and chamber
music groups. Many of these have not only been based upon
classical music, but also have embraced jazz and popular music
styles with great success. The School now runs a 20-piece Big
Band, an eight-piece Trad Jazz Band, and an improvisatory
ten-piece Modern Jazz Ensemble. Even from early days, there
was a tradition of ‘Prefects’ Concerts’ and later these developed
into ‘Rag Revues’. On a department-led basis, the tradition
of Glee singing in the prefects’ concerts is now replicated
within our year-group Close Harmony Choirs. The tradition of
rock, pop and music technology is also now upon us, with a
full recording studio set up in the Music School, and regular
opportunities and competitions for student-led alternative
bands, whether they be rock, folk, pop or indie.
Music was always heard within School productions, and it
is fair to say that this is one area that has continued to expand
and develop in recent years. Notable stepping stones along
the way include Cowell’s production of
A Midsummer Night’s
Dream
in 1923; a series of pupil-performed operas in the
late 1970s and early 1980s; and the bi-annual performances
of large-scale musicals with which the School enjoyed great
success from the late 1980s. These links between Drama and
Music is where the School has been very successful in recent
years, appointing its first Director of Cultural Activities in 1991
and linking this post in with the North Wall Arts Centre in 1996.
Today, the Music Department consists of six full-time
staff and close to 40 peripatetic music teachers, covering
every instrument from piano to bagpipes, from oboe to
music tech, from electric guitar to double bass. Though not a
large building, the Ferguson Music School, opened in 1962,
was a major stepping stone, offering the School ten practice
rooms and three larger recital rooms for orchestras and other
ensembles. It came at a time when Edward Manning, Director
of Music, headed an orchestra of 50 and a choir of 60 for the
first time in the School’s history. The School Orchestra and
Chapel Choir have performed in the last five years at Cadogan
Hall and the Royal Albert Hall, London – the latter in the
presence of the Queen and televised by the BBC. They have
performed at a good number of major cathedrals, and we are
now used to dealing with choristers and talented musicians
coming into the School as music scholars, nurturing their skills
and building to achieve their ambition.
At the advent of a new Music Building to be completed in
2016, St Edward’s can now look to the future. The growth in
music – be it solo, ensemble; choirs, orchestra, bands; classical,
jazz, rock/pop, music tech or purely academic – means that
there really is breadth and depth of music for all.
Alex Tester
Director of Music
DRAMA
Since Drama and Theatre Studies was introduced to the
School as a curriculum subject the Department has grown
considerably, with a third of the School now studying the
subject from Shell through to GCSE, A Level and IB.
At the heart of our pedagogy is the need for self-
reflection and self-discovery. We want pupils to feel a sense
of ownership of their work and have creative freedom to
explore their world and the world at large through a wide
variety of performance practices. Pupils can thrive both as
performers and on the technical and design side; technical
theatre is growing with many younger pupils learning under
the guidance of the older ones. All of our ‘techies’ who have
wanted to pursue a career in technical theatre have been
successful in gaining entry to the very best drama schools,
James Atkins and Miles Fisher to name but two.
The introduction of IB Theatre Arts to the curriculum
has been an excellent one. The guidance for the course has
allowed the Department to craft an exciting syllabus for the
pupils that encourages independent learning and deep enquiry
into a vast range of theatre practices from all over the world.
We find the IB course exciting and liberating for both teacher
and pupil alike.
We also have a very close relationship with the North Wall,
where pupils gain a huge amount from the workshops offered
by companies and from the performances they can go to see
such as
Bang Bang Bang
and
Dreams of Violence
by Out of
Joint
,
directed by Max Stafford-Clark. Other companies such as
NIE, ATC and Shared Experience have had a huge impact on
our work. Much of our curriculum relies on the high quality of
the professional theatre in the North Wall.
The future for Drama in the School is a bright one, where
cuts to the arts are severely affecting the maintained system,
here there is growing support and understanding of how
important creative subjects and particularly Drama are. Here
there is a place for the individual to grow and thrive, here
there is space for the mind to dream and create possibilities.
Teddies has always been a place for the individual and in
Drama we continue to celebrate this and encourage the
development of the whole person, emotionally, socially and
intellectually.
Katrina Eden
Head of Drama
Chapter 5 / Doorways and Gateways
Flossie Pugh and Jack Vincent win the
Battle of the Bands with their acoustic
rock duo, 2012.
Far left:
Henry V
,
Sebastian de Souza,
2009.
Left: The cast of
We
Will RockYou
, 2009.
Bottom left: Laurence
Olivier (third from the
right)andothers,1921.
‘St Edward’s wanted pupils to go into the church or
into the army. I wanted to be an oboe player. In my
last term I told the captain of boating that I was
a cricketer and the captain of cricket that I was
a boater.Thus I made time for my oboe practice.
When they discovered what I had done they made
me score for an inter-House cricket match, all on
my own. I had not much interest and a very blunt
pencil.They played for three days in sweltering
heat.Atthe end they didn’t know who had won
and had to play the match again. I eventually
joined the BBC Symphony Orchestra.’
Geoffrey Browne (F, 1959–62)