“What a rich and inspiring treat was bestowed upon the audience of the upper school Spring festival. A truly moving and somewhat overwhelming collection of contributions from groups and individuals giving one a rare and beautiful insight into what lives and grows within the upper school. From incredible solo instrumental pieces, to a world premier from one of our alumni, Paul Carr who, in celebration of our centenary, has composed gentle yet uplifting tones to accompany the words of Rudolph Steiner's upper school morning verse, 'I look into the world'. We were taken to the exploding, unpredictable and bright reactive world of science from our A level Chemistry students with a demonstration of bright and noisy experiments. Races with robots diligently designed and carefully created caused excitement. As for spoken word recitation, you could not have asked for more thought provoking, raw and dynamic words to demonstrate the breadth and depth our students go to explore subjects and are then creatively able to express their thoughts. A visual feast of not only skilled crafts were on display but also ambitious and expressive images of Art work were shown. A proud moment, celebrating our incredible, inspiring students..”

Alex Gearing, Alumni, parent & teacher

UPPER SCHOOL SPRING FESTIVAL 2025

On Wednesday evening, our wonderful Upper School students presented an incredible display of work, ability, talent and brilliance that kept the audience enthralled for more than two hours.

We heard music, creative writing, passionate advocacy and more; we saw chemistry, craft work, the visual arts and robotic cars. The majority of this abundance was derived from this term’s work.

We heard six outstanding soloists from Classes 12 and 10 perform challenging musical pieces ranging from Beethoven to George Benson which captured the awed attention of the listeners who responded with rapturous applause. Elly Hunt gave a gorgeous acoustic performance of her very own Better Than I Ever Believed that can now be found on the streaming platform Bandcamp.

Having just completed their Spoken Word Main Lesson, six students from Class 10 launched into performative presentations of their chosen topics like seasoned advocates, speaking passionately, informatively and compellingly about the climate, refraction, racism and food. Class 9 students gave poignant readings of their touching pieces inspired by Spring.

The Class 11 Chemistry display has become a popular feature of the festival and this Wednesday’s Colour, Combustion and Chaos was no exception. The grounded awareness that the students brought to their performance was remarkable and was met with delight and intense focus from the audience. The controlled tempo was almost mesmeric, and I can just imagine our students taking over the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lecture series in the near future.

A brief walk to see the beautiful craft work on display was the only interval we took and soon after we were treated to a wonderful slideshow of visual art created throughout the year by Upper School students.

A musical moment amongst so many was the World Premier of Paul Carr’s I Look into the World in the presence of the composer. Paul is an alumnus of Michael Hall and has written this setting of the Morning Verse especially for our centenary. It was gloriously sung by 32 volunteer students who have devoted their lunchtimes to learning the song and this was much appreciated by the composer. In fact, Paul was enchanted by the whole event writing that ‘it really was such a positive evening and I was enthralled by it!’ We intend that his song will become part of the fabric of Michael Hall for years to come.

And then there was the Upper School Choir. I know that I am profoundly biased, but to be in a position to support all of our students striving simultaneously to be their best selves is such a privilege. The unanimity of sound that they have developed is spine-tingling and the choir bookended the evening with true purpose and quality.

To perform in public is a challenge for us all. To do so is a true act of giving; of personal sacrifice, even. To not know how your efforts and sincere endeavour will be received causes real anxiety in so many such that it takes deep courage to launch into any act of performance. To then receive such all-encompassing waves of recognition, warmth, celebration and joy as our students did on Wednesday can, in the moment, be experienced by each of us as a profound resurrection of our own selves.

So, I salute the courage of our young people and thank them for a wonderfully uplifting and joyous evening of culture, creativity, problem-solving, determined intent and unstinting appreciation of each other. I also wish to thank my dear colleagues for all the work and support that blossomed in such a programme.

Julian Rolton
Music Department