Admissions Cycle
IN HARMONY
For SPS Director of Music Orlando Pandolfi, magic is an everyday occurrence
Last spring, Orlando “O” Pandolfi led members of the SPS orchestra in playing Saint-Säens’ Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra No. 1 with cellist Yo-Yo Ma in front of the entire St. Paul’s School community. So when he’s asked to describe a favorite moment from his 12-year tenure as head of the SPS music program, it’s natural to assume that experience might be at the top of his list.
49%
New students who self-identify as non-Caucasian
42%
What he says, however is, “Last night, actually,” then describes the orchestra’s first read-through of a piano concerto they will be performing later in the term. Although the student pianist was at the rehearsal, Pandolfi assumed it would take several weeks of practice before the full group would be ready to play with her. “But I could see all the training they’ve had all year, and they were all responding quickly, so during the last 15 minutes I said, ‘okay, let’s bring in [the piano],’ and we got all the way through the movement. It made me think, ‘Wow! This is going to be great by the end of May.’ And that’s the kind of thing that happens all the time.”
A classical horn player and jazz vibraphonist who trained at Juilliard, Pandolfi came to SPS after several years as a professional performer and extensive teaching experience at the secondary school level. He says that what he loves about teaching high schoolers is that his students know how to learn. “And they know how to apply that ability to learn to whatever is interesting to them,” he adds. “As a school, we’re able to bring in serious music students who have been playing since the age of 3 or 4 and they then channel that same level of discipline toward other subjects while continuing to grow musically.”
The caliber of student musicians SPS attracts is among the reasons the School can offer a full orchestra despite the relatively small size of the student body and performance facilities that are a priority on the list of near-term campus upgrades. In a typical year, there are between 50 and 60 students who participate in the orchestra program, and roughly the same number who take instrument lessons, play in small groups
such as the jazz ensemble or sing in one of the SPS choirs. “That’s 20% of the student body or more,” Pandolfi says. “I’d say that’s pretty good.”
Over Pandolfi’s time at SPS, a number of musicians have gone on to outstanding college and conservatory programs. Unsurprisingly, SPS student musicians also make a strong showing at the audition-based New Hampshire All-State Music Festivals that take place every April. In 2023, the School sent 29 instrumentalists to the All-State Orchestra and Concert band, the largest contingent by far among the 55 schools participating; 27 SPS musicians participated in the 2024 Classical All-State Music Festival. On grounds, student musicians regularly perform as soloists or in small groups as part of the chapel program. This year, for the first time, the orchestra played a piece as part of the School’s Lunar New Year celebration, as well.
And then there are opportunities like last May’s performance with Yo-Yo Ma, who spent the day in Millville as the School’s Conroy Distinguished Visitor. Pandolfi was the one who suggested that in addition to playing a solo piece Ma might also perform with the orchestra, and when Ma agreed, Pandolfi set himself the task of finding a cello concerto that a large group of students could learn quickly. “We started working on it and we really drilled it in,” he recalls. “When Yo-Yo got here, we only had one short run through, and he’s a pretty free player, so it was definitely some work to keep everyone with him. … but it ended up being pretty good.”
Pretty good indeed, and just one example on a long list of things that make the SPS orchestra program special.
Duisberg
—KristinJack Bocresion ’24 embraces both ancient languages and modern mathematics
A typical day for Joaquim “Jack” Bocresion ’24 can often seem like a high-wire intellectual balancing act — not that he’d have it any other way. His course load reflects his deep and varied passions: Latin 5 Honors, Greek 3 Honors, Advanced Chemistry and a math seminar in which he has begun to dive deep into number theory. There’s his work with the robotics team and the Classics Society, and on his own he’s pushed himself to bone up on abstract algebra, teach himself Sanskrit and read Ovid’s complete “Metamorphoses” in preparation for his upcoming Classical Honors capstone project on books and myths... in the original Latin, of course.
“I initially started reading the ‘Metamorphoses’ because I had thoroughly enjoyed my Fourth Form year in Latin 4 Honors, the poetry survey class, and I wanted to continue reading poetry, but at a faster pace with a focus on one work,” says the Sixth Former, who earned Dickey prizes for advanced math and Latin last spring. “I can become obsessed with things pretty quickly. But I love understanding new things and how the world around me works.”
Beyond the SPS grounds, Bocresion has served for the last two years on the board of the New Hampshire Junior Classical League, and he was one of a handful of students from across the state to participate in last year’s Latin Quiz Bowl. He says the allure of the classics is as much shaped by the sheer history of these ancient languages as it is by what’s still left to learn about the culture and civilizations that were built around them. “The people who spoke
Self-motivation and curiosity have long shaped Bocresion’s life. His Ethiopian-born father — a business consultant who speaks eight languages — and his Brazilian-born mother pushed Bocresion and his younger brother Luca ’26 to explore the world far beyond their New York City home.
“We were exposed to so many different things,” he says. “Different languages, different cultures, different ways of living.”
By the time he was a teen, Bocresion had taught himself several different coding languages and worked part-time as a web developer for a string of different corporate clients. When his middle school Latin classes felt too thin, he gave himself additional homework to gain better command of the language’s grammatical structure. It was much the same when he arrived at SPS as a Fourth Former in the fall of 2021. Pointed toward art classes instead of Greek by his academic adviser, who was concerned about the new student taking on too many demanding courses at the start of his time at SPS, Bocresion spent the following summer break doing a year’s worth of classwork on his own. Not only did he teach himself well enough to join Greek 2 that fall, at the end of the year he earned the Oakes Greek Prize for the best examination on the writings of Xenophon.
Not surprisingly, Bocresion has made the most of his time at St. Paul’s, regularly straddling the centuries between the worlds of the ancients and 21st century mathematical thinking. He says the space between those two eras is not as far apart as one might think.
“It’s about new discoveries,” says Bocresion, whose plan for college includes double majoring in math and classics. “Building on the body of human knowledge and passing that on to the next generation and gaining a better understanding of who we are.”
them are interesting and the physical objects that survived are also interesting,” he says. “So little actually did survive, and so now we are having to reconstruct those worlds. It’s a very collaborative field. You can build on the work of someone in the field today or you can build on the work of someone from a long time ago. That’s exciting.”
It’s much the same for Bocresion in his STEM work, in particular advanced math, which he says offers an important window into how the world works. “Math is fundamental,” he says. “The world is not math but math is a model for the world. You can abstract certain physical concepts and models for how the world works through it. It’s super interesting and elegant and it has purpose.”
The latter, especially, is particularly potent for Bocresion. When he was younger, he says, he admired the titans of technology, intrigued by their celebrity and wealth. But in going deeper into his own interests, his priorities and what he wants his life to represent have shifted. In building on the work of past scholarship, Bocresion hopes he can help lay the groundwork for future generations to find new breakthroughs in understanding both our past and our future.
“I’m a problem solver,” he says. “I love that kind of work, where you have something you want to find, and you have knowns and unknowns. You have a mission and there are a ton of different paths you can take. The work you do can have an impact on the world. For me, it’s a question of how can I advance humanity and help us learn more about who we are and what’s possible.”
— Ian AldrichOn Monday, March 25, the Rt. Rev. Bishop A. Robert Hirschfeld, 10th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, welcomed students back from their Spring Vacation with a SPRING TERM CONVOCATION on the subject of vocation. “How do we find our calling in life?” he asked. “By and large, a good rule for finding your vocation is this: the kind of work that God usually calls you to is the kind of work a. that you need to do, and b. that the world needs to have done.”
More than 450 members of the SPS community traveled to Johnson, Vermont, on April 8 to witness THE SOLAR ECLIPSE along the path of totality. It was a trip several years in the making, and a “life-changing” experience for students, teachers and administrators who took part in what for many will be a once-in-a-generation event. The next total solar eclipse in the continental United States will take place in 2044.
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