Another collaboration between Winsor and RL brought this year’s musical, The Secret Garden, to the Smith Theater stage. Based on the 1911 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the musical (script and lyrics by Marsha Norman and music by Lucy Simon) premiered on Broadway in 1991 and ran for two years.Twenty-one actors from Winsor and RL, along with a robust stage and tech crew, produced the show under the direction of RL Director of Dramatics Derek Nelson and Director of Music Rob Opdycke. The show had two evening performances on 29 & 30 April.  See photos here.

A group consisting of 60+ alumni joined faculty and Class I for an Alumni Spring Dinner on April 14. The event, which replaced the annual Alumni Spring Luncheon, offered attendees a unique and detailed first glimpse of the School’s athletic facilities expansion. David Powell, a representative from Hastings Architecture Associates, outlined and discussed the project, offering insights on the initiative with pictures and slide renderings of its progression. After dinner, school representatives and construction directors led field tours of the building sites for guests. See pictures of the eventful evening on Flickr.

After its far-flung tour of Iceland last year, the Glee Club stayed local this year, making the rounds of the Prairie State for its spring break tour. They gave concerts in Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana, and took in plenty of sights along the way.

In Chicago the boys performed at the Merit School of Music, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Francis Parker School, and two venues at the University of Chicago Lab Schools Historic Campus. While their Willis Tower visit was cancelled because of high winds, the Architectural Boat Tour made up for it, not to mention supper at Smoke Daddy BBQ Restaurant. Special thanks to Phil Curley ’72 and Paul Gibbons ’86 for their help in setting up Chicago performances!

Other highlights included performing in the opening concert of the Intercollegiate Men’s Choral National Seminar at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—the only high school group to perform at the Seminar. After hearing a concert by Take 6 (the most awarded a cappella group in history) as part of the seminar, RL singers were privileged to join that group’s masterclass the next morning, and perform one of their songs with the band. At IMC’s closing concert, our boys got to hear the University of Kentucky and University of Michigan Glee Clubs give fantastic performances. The Glee Club performed at its highest level at Westminster Church in Springfield, reports Director Rob Opdycke. While in the state capitol, the group visited the Lincoln Presidential Museum. See photos here.

The School was treated to another Recital Hall on 12 April—80% piano, 20% mandolin, 100% memorized. 

Christopher Zhu V played Etude Op. 42 No. 5, by Scriabin; Dylan Zhou III played Sunflower by Yu Shi Wang, arranged for piano by Er Yao Ling (based on a traditional Chinese folk melody); Jonathan Weiss V played his own composition, “For Every End a Beginning”; on solo mandolin Marc de Fontnouvelle III played “A Bowl of Bula” by Mark O’Connor, an American fiddler; and Aditya Mahadevan I played the second movement of the Fantasie in C Major, opus 17, by Robert Schumann.

See photos here.

On Monday 4 April, Phil Balson ’15 introduced his college professor Dr. Christopher Smart, who teaches at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, to Rousmaniere Hall.  Once an R.L. sixie whose time at the School was shortened due to family relocation, Dr. Smart spoke on his career path in investments, academia, and journalism.

A Yale University undergraduate of History, Dr. Smart also earned his PhD in International Relations from Columbia University. He has served in the Obama Administration as a senior policymaker and Special Assistant to the President at the National Economic and National Security councils for more than half a decade. Yet, Christopher described his earlier jobs as formative not just to his current role but also to his life.

In those experiences, Dr. Smart first held a role as a reporter in St. Petersburg, Florida, and in Paris, France. Shortly after his journalistic pursuits, he became Director of International Investments at Pioneer Investments where he managed Emerging Markets and International portfolios. With Russia shifting between “central planning and free-market economies,” Dr. Smart eventually offered his economic acumen in Moscow, where he advised financial market reform policy for the post-Soviet Russian Finance Ministry.

Before fielding questions from students (even one from a meek sixie perched in the balcony, a setting he remembered from his brief time at the School) Dr. Smart offered three pieces of advice for the boys: Don’t be afraid to speak to strangers; find an effective way to tell authority figures that they are wrong when appropriate; and actively track and recap your beliefs and disbeliefs.