Issue 43 Spring 2012
Highlights Keys
to
NON
NOBIS
N AT I
ST ALBANS SCHOOL
Music Success
In a major boost to the Music Department, the School has taken delivery of eight new Steinway pianos, to become only the second All-Steinway School in the country. All piano-playing students in the School will benefit from the new instruments, which include seven upright pianos in the practice rooms on the top floor of School House. A Steinway Model ‘B’ Grand Piano is now housed in the School Library, where it is used in concerts. A grand inaugural concert featuring the grand piano took place in the library on 17th November, featuring professional soloists Alissa Firsova and Anna le Hair as well as pupils and staff. The audience thrilled to two Poèmes by Scriabin, perfor med by vir tuoso pianist A l i s s a F i r s ov a , a n d t o a fi n e interpretation of Fauré’s Nocturne Alissa Firsova performs in the Steinway Inaugural Concert No. 6 by Anna le Hair. Home-grown talent also demonstrated the huge expressive potential of this splendid instrument. Nick Fleet gave a nuanced performance of Debussy’s Valse Romantique and David McConnell a fresh approach to Rachmaninov’s C# minor Prelude. Hugh Myers and Alex Shavick drew tones of controlled but heart-felt melancholy from the instrument in pieces by Chopin. All performances were highlights, though Oliver Ng’s and David Cartwright’s performances of the faster and more fiery Grieg Holberg Prelude and Chopin Fantasie Impromptu also deserve mention.
Woollams on Film Woollams has performed a starring role in a series of internet films which provide advice for groundsmen of cricket clubs. Woollams has been the home of the ECB’s Pitch Consultant Chris Wood for the last three years, so the School’s grounds, which have frequently won plaudits in groundsmanship awards, were a natural location for the films. As the NatWest Cricket Club’s Pitch Doctor, Chris Wood provides a series of video guides for groundsmen, covering everything from marking out a pitch at the start of the season to putting the pitch to bed in the winter. He is assisted in the films by the School’s groundsmen, who maintain Woollams in perfect condition. The films can be seen on the NatWest Cricket website, and may be released later as a DVD.
Poets’ Success Four Fifth formers will soon be published poets, with their work appearing in a national anthology. David Cartwright, William Beynon, William Barnes and Shahir Ali were successful in the national Express Yourself poetry competition, organised by YoungWriters.Young people across England were challenged to write a poem of no longer than 30 lines on a theme of their choice. The four winning entries were inspired by Ted Hughes’ Tales From Ovid, and will be published at the end of March in an anthology of winning entries from Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.
Writer Talks Writer Joe Craig came to talk to First and Second form boys about his career. The author of the Jimmy Coates books and the thriller Lifters gave a very entertaining talk about his early experiences and choices he made which led to his work as both a musician and a writer.
Musical Variety
at
Concerts
Dazzling, spectacular, with music ranging across a myriad of genres, this year’s Autumn Concert was an impressive evening. The first half began with a lively performance of Copland’s Hoe Down from Rodeo, followed by an interlude of instrumental music from the Saxophone and Clarinet Ensembles.The Barbershop Group delighted the audience with wonderful harmonies in contrasting pieces – Little Lamb, Yesterday and George Jones. A highlight of the night was the Chamber Choir and Symphony Orchestra, ending the first half with a fantastic Fantasia on Christmas Carols by Vaughan Williams, led by the talented baritone, Dr Saunders.The Jazz Band welcomed the audience back from the interval with impressive improvisations, succeeded by the sharp wit of the Percussion Ensemble’s lively and noisy performance of Curupira from Mitos Brasileiros by Rosauro. The pizzicato section of the Senior String Quartet’s performance of La Cumparista was very impressive as was the originality of the Senior Brass Ensemble’s arrangement of Frère Jacques. The audience found the rendition of Forget You by singing group MSG especially entertaining. The Senior Concert Band closed the concert with two very stirring performances. A Level Music students gave a lunchtime concert which included fantastic variety, from Chris Springthorpe’s polished and moving cello piece to the sharp improvisation by Louis Grant and Ben Zacaroli on drums and bass respectively. There was outstanding instrumental music and some very impressive vocals from James Mohajer and Max Thomas, performing renditions of The A Team by Ed Sheeran and Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. Michael Bird’s sinuous guitar accompaniment to the latter was played with great finesse. The lunchtime concert also served as a warm-up for the evening’s Young Musicians Concert, featuring Joe Davies OA, playing cello pieces by Beethoven, Britten and Prokofiev, accompanied by Jennifer Hughes on piano. This was the first public concert for the new Steinway grand piano and Jennifer Hughes fully demonstrated the quality of the instrument alongside Joe Virtuoso Davies’ sonorous cello. percussion from Ben Zacaroli
The Working World Students swapped St Albans for China and Hong Kong for Work Experience week during half term. Lower Sixth formers took on a variety of roles in different places to gain an understanding of employment.These varied from working in a hospital in China to banking in Hong Kong, while most were closer to home. One student worked at Arsenal Football Club and two others helped out in the Verulamium Museum. Kieran Vaghela worked in the Clyde & Co office in Paris, which was described by Legal 500 as ‘undoubtedly the best insurance firm in France’. From this he was able to gain a highly valuable experience of a French-speaking law firm as well as the French law court itself. Mitchell Zhangazha, who previously appeared in the final of Britain’s Got Talent with the band New Bounce, went to two companies in the arts sector for his work experience:The Lion King on Pudding Lane, London, and 3M Music Group. He found this a fascinating experience, opening his eyes further to opportunities in the field.
Chloe Hall and Jonathan Baker (above), showed they All students found that they learnt much over the week, which gave them ‘were worth it’ when they were successful in the Royal a better idea of what career direction they might take in the future. Institution’s competition to explain explain ‘How and why do we taste?’ They had to show understanding, amongst other aspects, of the chemistry of receptors, the physiology of tasting, the evolutionary advantage of tasting and the psychology of tasting. The essays by our two students were placed among the top twenty from all entries. As a result they have been invited to attend the Royal Institution to collect their book token prizes, and are in the running for the L’Oréal Young Scientist of the Year award.
Physics Films School science film-makers have had great success in the School Science Film Challenge, with four teams shortlisted and three winners. Brian Yuen and Duncan Merelie took home the trophy for Best Physics with their description and animations of how to get a boiled egg into a milkbottle.The award for Best Animation went to Ben Zacaroli’s funny but hard-hitting Stopping Distances.
A Midwinter Dream Before Christmas, New Place was transformed into a magical starlit fairyland for a dynamic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Neon coloured costumes and electro music gave the play a 1980s revamp; the Lovers were rebellious schooluniformed teenagers, Puck and Oberon ruled the forest in matching leather jackets, and Titania’s fairy train, decorated with fluorescent wings, protected her bower in a trancelike state. The energy of the production was breathtaking; from the opening medley of lines from the play sung by the lovely Dreamettes, to the impressive stage fighting of the Lovers in the forest and the hilarious final performance of Pyramus and Thisbe by the Mechanicals, the production never lost pace. Superb performances from all the cast made each and ever y scene a delight. Not only did they speak Shakespeare’s verse
beautifully, showing an impressively sophisticated appreciation of the poetic rhythms, but the actors seized every opportunity for comic effect, making it truly entertaining to watch. Kitty Wright (Helena) and Eleanor Rosser-Smyth (Hermia) were both sympathetic and feisty as rivals in love, and were matched by assured performances from Will Jacobs (Lysander) and Ben Harrison (Demetrius). Annabel Thomson gave a powerful performance as Titania, capturing perfectly the flashes of anger that provoke her jilted lover, the stately Oberon (Ganesh Rajaratnam), aided by the cheeky Puck (Adam Annis), to engineer her humiliating love affair with an ass. And what an ass Elliot Krieger’s Bottom was. From the moment he entered, he dominated the stage – especially when limbering up in a leotard – and led the subtly
performed Mechanicals with wellintentioned yet amusingly misguided direction. By the end of this enter taining production, as Puck delivered his final lines and the stars flickered for the last time, the audience was left with the feeling that they had, like Bottom, ‘had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was..’
Science News
Frau Renz und Frau Hahn mit Kuchen und Kindern
Lantern Night The First form enjoyed a German Lantern Festival at Woollams, with their own handmade lanterns. The festival commemorates St Martin of Tours, who became known for his kind acts towards the poor in the 4th century. Four young actors enacted a dramatisation of his story for the rest of the year group. The German tradition is to eat goose; our boys substituted a paper goose full of sweets, which proved very popular. Sadly, weather conditions prevented the traditional walk with lighted lanterns in the winter darkness. However, stomping around in the warm darkness of Woollams’ interior held its own appeal.The occasion was concluded in the customary way with some hot, spiced punch and scrumptious homemade cookies.
The overall national winners were Sam Eley and Fergus Mitchell, whose film was judged as ‘a well paced and balanced examination of one of Physics’ many intriguing ideas. The piece had confidence, charm and panache.’ These successes follow two years of scooping the top prize in the Planet SciCast competition, which was not run this year. The films were made in the final half term of the Lower Sixth during Physics lessons, the aim being to communicate an aspect of basic Physics in under twoand-a-half minutes.They impressed the judges with their originality, ingenuity and careful editing.The films can be viewed on the School Science Film Challenge website.
Biology Six pupils achieved the Society of Biology’s ‘Biology Challenge’ Bronze award and a further eight received Silver. Gold Awards were present to Max Andrew, Nick Hill, Will Barnes, Harry Lampert, Harry Pottinger, David Cartwright and Tom Willis.
Sport:
National Cross Country Champions
Cross Country: The teams competed twice in November, achieving outstanding results to become National Cross Country Champions. Our Intermediates ran firstly in the regional final of the English Schools Cup. This region is the toughest area to qualify from, and with teams representing very strong schools such as Southend High and the Eastwood School, our runners needed to be, and were, at their peak. Robbie Lightowler finished third, followed by Adam Thorpe in 5th and Joseph Brennan in 6th, with Joel Rabinowitz taking 16th. Daniel Myers finished 19th and Harrison Pyrke took 30th, giving the team a score of 30 points, which was 20 points ahead of the next team, Southend. This gained the team a place in the National Final for the second year in a row. The School then sent five teams to the Haskell Cup at RGS Guildford, racing against over forty teams, including our main rivals, Judd School. Our English Schools runners formed our A team, which for this race consisted of three members of the Fourth form and one Fifth former. Over a demanding but fast course, the team members ran exemplary laps before Joe Redwood moved away in the final lap to finish 30 metres ahead, to take the Cup. These boys form the youngest team ever to win this event. To add to this, the B team comfortably won their race, as did all but one of the other teams. In December the team travelled to Princethorpe College in Rugby to defend its 2010 title. Here they faced the country’s top schools in the final of the English Schools Cup, including previous winner Southend High School and Manchester’s West Hill School, who fielded two internationals. Robbie Lightowler shared and maintained an early lead with two Southend runners, finishing third. Adam Thorpe came in 6th, Joe Brennan 11th and Daniel Myers 21st. This team achievement gave our runners 41 points to West Hill’s 68, a very sweet victory indeed.
enjoyed victories against Bedford Modern and St Columba’s. The 2nd XV beat Haileybury, St George’s, QE Barnet, Bedford Modern and St Columba’s. The U16A team enjoyed an unbeaten season, which saw them top the Schoolsrugby performance league. These included a victory by 20 points over Haileybury and wins against QE Barnet, Bedford Modern and Stamford. The U16Bs crushed Haileybury, QE Barnet and Bedford Modern. The U15As won against Haileybury, St George’s, QE Barnet and Stamford, while the U14As won against Haileybury, Dr Challoner’s, St George’s and QE Barnet. The U13s did well, while the U12As scored some eye-watering victories over St George’s 56-0, Dr Challoner’s 49-0, QE Barnet 53-0 and Bedford Modern 61-0. In the Daily Mail U15 Cup, our boys made very impressive progress,
with a particularly fine win against The swimming former champions Bedford 15-12 pool is developing in Round 5. Having already achieved into an selection to the Independent Schools’ impressive space U20 squad, OA Dan Watt is to be congratulated for being selected for the Herts County U20 side.
Netball: Our 1st VII scored exceptionally fine victories by beating Loreto College 16-4 in the final of the District Plate and then beating the Rugby: There were some real highs in High School 23-20. the course of the season, in particular for the U15s and U16s. The 1st XV
Shooting: Eight students took part in an inaugural shooting tour to Jersey. Top competition scorers were Chris Oates and Tom Chapman. Badminton: The U18s won the HSBA competition, while Mark Sadler is U18 County Individual Champion. Football: The 1st XI reached the quarter finals of the County Cup, briefly topping the Evening Standard league. Underwater Hockey: L6 former, Max Monk, has been scouted by the England U19 squad and has been training at their Loughborough University training facilities. Tennis: Our U14 team reached the quarter finals of the Aegon Tennis Championship.They played to a very high standard, with Charlie Broom winning his match 7-5.
Sports Centre: With the floors, walls, plumbing, electricity, glazing, some plastering and the stunning sweeping roof installed by the end of 2011, the Sports Centre is beginning to take shape as the majestic building it will soon be. Since then work has continued with vigour. The climbing wall is now under construction and a maze of pipes, containers, gauges and switches are in place to monitor the swimming pool.Tiling is starting to cover the walls around the pool, with bands of the school colours.
St Albans School is a company limited by guarantee. Registered in England No. 4400125 Charity No. 1092932 Registered Office: Abbey Gateway, St Albans, Herts. AL3 4HB