Private School News

GOODBYE GOTHIC? Lancing College stages major art exhibition in Brighton

Exhibition at Gallery 100
100 Queen’s Road, Brighton

Open to public: 9am until 5pm Monday to Friday, admission free

Landmark architecture at Lancing College is one of the themes that are celebrated in a special exhibition at DMH Stallard’s Gallery 100. Following the success of the first Lancing College Art Students’ Exhibition here last year, this leading firm of solicitors has invited the Art Department to stage a second show.

Lancing College has an outstanding Art Department. The exhibition, GOODBYE GOTHIC?, shows about 40 examples of the finest work produced by A level and GCSE students during 2008, as well as pieces by the Department’s staff, all of whom are practising artists. It includes paintings, drawings, photographs and representations in mixed media. Some of the art in this show pays homage to the magnificent architecture in the famous College Chapel, as the Art School has been housed in its crypt for many years.

This month the entire Art School has moved to a purpose-designed, contemporary building for the 21st century. In recognition of the Department’s impressive achievements, and its importance, the College has built a new Art School, designed by award-winning LCE Architects. It is an energy-efficient structure, which is in harmony with its surroundings – a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Most of the exhibitions at the Stallard gallery feature contemporary artists with an established reputation, but the quality of work by Lancing students rivals that of many professionals.

Lancing is as well known for its teaching of Art as it is for producing academics of the highest calibre. The Art Department has an impressive record of producing students who become designers, photographers, architects, art historians and painters. Four students who completed their studies this year have gone on to read architecture at top universities.

A SPECIAL PERFORMANCE AND LIVE BBC BROADCAST IN LANCING COLLEGE CHAPEL

Benjamin Britten’s ST NICOLAS CANTATA

Andrew Kennedy: Tenor
BBC Singers with choristers of St Paul’s Cathedral; BBC Concert Orchestra; Sioned Williams (harp)
Conductors: Andrew Carwood, Paul Brough

Thursday 18 December at 7pm
Tickets: £10, £20.

Available from Chichester Festival Theatre Box Office (in person or by telephone): 01243 781312
or from Ticket South (online or by telephone): www.ticketsouth.co.uk; 023 80711818

This concert will be broadcast live for BBC Radio 3 to mark the 60th anniversary of the world premiere of the St Nicolas Cantata in Lancing College Chapel. The work was commissioned by Lancing College. The concert will be available as a webcast on bbc.co.uk/singers from 7.00pm on 19 December.

ST NICOLAS is patron saint of children, and Lancing’s magnificent Chapel is dedicated to St Mary and St Nicolas. Benjamin Britten, the most widely performed British composer of the 20th century, wrote the St Nicolas Cantata to celebrate the school’s centenary, in 1948. Peter Pears, Britten’s artistic collaborator and companion, was the premier British tenor of his generation. Pears was educated at Lancing, where he developed his singing and acting talents. Both musicians retained close links with the school, and Pears was a member of the BBC Singers.

The St Nicolas Cantata was given its world premiere in the Chapel by the famous Lancing College Choir, with Peter Pears singing the role of Saint Nicolas. Children’s voices play an important part in many of Britten’s compositions, and this Cantata is a fine example. It has been performed by leading choirs and soloists in major venues throughout the world.

This public concert will feature the St Nicolas Cantata, Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and Howells’s Three Carol-Anthems. Lancing College holds a valuable archive of material relating to the commission and composition of the St Nicolas Cantata, which includes letters from both Britten and Pears. A number of old boys still remember hearing, or singing in, its first performance. During the interval on 18 December, there will be a fascinating programme, broadcast on BBC Radio 3, on the genesis of this work with interviews, as well as readings from letters and documents in the Lancing archives.

The St Nicolas Cantata is a dramatic depiction the life of St Nicolas in nine scenes. It describes legendary incidents, including the Tale of the Pickled Boys. Three women call for their missing boys: Timothy, Mark and John. Travellers, seeking food in the city, order a meal at an inn. St Nicolas warns them not to touch the meat, as it is the flesh of the missing boys, who have been killed by a butcher and pickled in salt. St Nicolas calls the three boys and brings them back to life. They then enter, holding hands, and singing ‘Alleluia’.

LANCING COLLEGE CHAPEL: Award-winning restoration work completed

Lancing College Chapel stands high on the South Downs. It is a magnificent Gothic Revival Grade I listed building, and is recognised as one of the most impressive landmarks in Sussex. Thirty metres in height, this airy, lofty structure is delicate and intricate in detail. The history of the building is told through its stained glass. This includes the spectacular Rose Window – the largest in England – containing 30,000 pieces of blown glass, and the Trevor Huddleston Memorial Window, dedicated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in May 2007.

During the past eighteen months, the stonework and metalwork of the Chapel have been restored by the acclaimed Chichester Cathedral Works Organisation. The final scaffolding platforms have just been taken down to reveal their meticulous expertise in the Chapel, for which they have won the Ecclesiastical Building Award from Sussex Heritage Trust for 2008.

The Lancing Tapestries, designed in the 1930s, were woven on William Morris’s great loom at Merton Abbey. New spotlights have been installed to show off the details of the tapestries and high altar to best advantage, and a number of rare and valuable artefacts have been conserved, including the 15th century processional cross. Other treasures include the splendid Frobenius and Walker organs, the High Altar Crucifix and a 17th century Flemish carved, wood figure of St Nicolas.

Lancing College Chapel is usually open to visitors Mon – Sat 10am to 4pm (Sun 12pm to 4pm).

A childhood dream comes for Cottesmore’s new Headmaster

Tom Rogerson is certainly coming home when he takes over as the new headmaster at Cottesmore School in Pease Pottage, West Sussex, one of the longest-established IAPS prep schools in the country.

Some thirty years ago Tom himself was a pupil at the school, where his father Mark was headmaster. Born and brought up at Cottesmore, Tom decided at an early age that he would like to run the school some day – as in fact Mark had done too, because his own father had been head there for nearly thirty years!

So Tom becomes the third Rogerson to lead the school, and if ever there was a family school, this is it!

Cottesmore provides full and weekly boarding for boys and girls aged 8 to 13, and prepares them for entry to all the top public schools. Tom himself went to Eton and, following his ambition, set about gaining strong teaching experience that would equip him to run Cottesmore one day. He has worked at a number of leading prep schools, including Broomwood Hall, Eaton House The Manor, and Ludgrove, so he understands what parents want for their children and is well well placed to provide it.

An English graduate with a broad range of interests in sport, art and music, Tom is married to Lottie who is a very experienced early years teacher.

Tom is young, energetic and passionate about Cottesmore and its children. He takes over a school that was described as “excellent” no fewer than 17 times in an ISI inspection during the spring term. That in itself makes Cottesmore remarkable, but Tom has plenty of ideas about how he will develop the school over the coming years:

“Cottesmore has always offered an amazing education by making sure everyone has plenty of fun while they’re learning and playing. As a country boarding school we can provide facilities, opportunities and experiences that no other type of school can. I want Cottesmore to be known as a school where children are just bursting to tell their parents what they have done, a school parents would wish they’d been to themselves, and a school where our children love it so much that they want to come back and run it one day!”

Definitely a school to watch as Tom gets going!

For more information, please contact Tom Rogerson at Cottesmore School on 01293 520648 or visit www.cottesmoreschool.com

Sport For All Ball at Handcross Park

At Handcross Park, parents and friends mingled with famous names from the world of world class cricket and the media at the fabulous Sport For All Ball on Saturday 4th October. The school was raising money for the Lords Taveners, of whom Mike Gatting is Chairman, and for a new sports pavilion for the girls and boys. In the unrecognisable and glamorous surroundings of the Sports Hall, decked out in black, white and gold, guests enjoyed fabulous food, an extensive auction overseen by television’s John Inverdale and music by Southern FM DJ Danny Pike and local band Rusted. Chris Adams, until very recently Captain of Sussex Cricket Team and the Headmaster, Warren Hilton, both very involved with organising the event, were delighted with the evening and grateful to the generosity shown by so many which resulted in over £20,000 being raised.

Windlesham pupil scoops International Boarder of the Year Award 2008