Alan Rowlands, pianist, musician, teacher and friend of the school, taught piano and music at Brockwood Park from its inception and for over 30 years, inspiring generations of music students as well as countless others who delighted in his extraordinary playing and cherished him as a friend.
Continue reading ‘Alan Rowlands (1929–2012)’
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Peter Norris, inspired musician and teacher, taught piano and music theory at Brockwood Park for over 15 years, having been originally introduced to the school by his friend Alan Rowlands. Throughout his time at Brockwood, Peter offered his teaching and world-class expertise with great generosity and humility, helping the Music Department to flourish and providing many music students with truly inspirational and immensely valuable music tuition.
Continue reading ‘Peter Norris (1937–2011)’
On Saturday, May 14th, 2011, 22 former students, staff, parents and others came together for the first official Brockwood reunion in Berlin. People travelled from as far as Oldenburg and Prague to be there. We met in a central place in Berlin and funnily a different kind of reunion was taking place at the same time with motorbike and old car riders. Just from the way people looked, it was quite easy to tell which reunion people were heading to!
By alphabetic order: Adrian Sydenham, Agnes Benoit, Andrés Nader, Anke Schmiedel, Charlotte He, Dagmar Albrecht, Daniel Celal Christoffel, Gregor Czimmek, James Griffin, Jan Janda, Jana Langguth, Jonathan Menz, Justine Hess, Kris Gorski, Lorena Wish, Ludger Fabian, Marc Schmiedel, Martin Janda, Moses Merkle, Natasza Smielowska, Pamela Ferchl.
Continue reading ‘Brockwood in Berlin: Alumni Got Together’
Sixteen former and current students and staff of Brockwood came together in central New York City on Saturday April 2nd. Alumni came from all over the US, as far as California and as close as Manhattan. They wanted to reconnect with one thing they all shared: Brockwood people and their lives.
Back Row (from left to right): Arvind Pai (Rishi Valley alumnus and host), Jonathan Mitchell, Lauren Russell-Geskos, Eva Segou, Xana Vie, Sid Goyal, Joel Vall Thomas , Kara Taylor, Ajit Pai (Rishi Valley alumnus and host), George Matthews.
Front Two Rows (from left to right): Hugo Mahabir, Dana Jané, Veronique Rignault, Tyler Davis-Mayo, Olga Gonzalez, Carole Starkes, Leila Taylor, Bill Taylor.
Continue reading ‘Participating in Tomorrow’s Brockwood: A Memorable Alumni Event in New York City’
Last Friday 23/04/10, I returned to Brockwood Park where I had studied from 1988 to 1992. My name is Duncan McKenzie and on this visit I brought my wife, Deepa from Tamil Nadu, South India and our nearly two year old daughter Chandni for their first visit outside of India where we live.
We live at Solitude farm, a six acre farming community in the international township of Auroville, South India where I have been living for the last seventeen years, since I left Brockwood.
All quotations are taken from the ‘Whole Movement of Life is Learning’ by Krishnamurti.
18th March
“So the first thing to realize is that thought can never bring about order, do what it will, through legislation, administration or compulsion.”
On the drive to Bennington I listen to public service radio and there is an item about the number of young adults having to remain in their parents homes because of the credit crunch and the lack of employment. In the last year a further 30 million people have been added to the population of the US, but the number of house sales is the same as the previous year. The generational differences are also considered not to be as great as they once were and, so the argument goes, it has become easier for young adults to remain in the family home and have the kind of freedoms which would not have been possible some years ago.
Arrive at Bennington College and miss the turning for the Admissions Office. I only know one person here, former Brockwood student Joel, who is a freshman. I am due to meet him this evening but have an appointment with the Admissions Officer prior to that. After driving around for some time in search of the right turning, I pull over and begin to rummage for the campus map. I look up; I’m being watched by a young man at a distance. He approaches, it is Joel, but neither of us can quite believe our eyes.
17th March
“A human being confused, disorderly, uncertain, in trying to establish order only creates more disorder.”
At ‘The Lone Wolf’ I get a pancake stack with maple syrup (from down the road) and coffee for breakfast. Today is Wednesday, so it is Amherst!
When Scott Forbes was the principal of Brockwood in the 80’s and early 90’s, he made a point of visiting US colleges and establishing a link with some of them which lead to quite a few Brockwood students coming to the US to study. For most it went extremely well, mainly because of the nature and approach of the colleges themselves. The liberal arts tradition in the US is based on the idea of a college curriculum that develops general intellectual capacities and imparts general knowledge over a four year period, leading to a Bachelor of Arts or Science. It is not regarded as a professional, vocational or technical qualification and in general the colleges allow more freedom to experiment with unusual groupings of subjects, or for the student to develop his or her own programme of study. In the US most colleges do not offer graduate studies and those that do are generally known as universities.
14th March
“Order is not static, it is a living movement.”
Farewell to Vinay at Penn Station, overcrowded due to weather related delays and cancellations. But mine is on time and the train has wireless, so I deal with a few emails before my battery runs out and by that time we are out the backdoor of NYC and into the countryside. But it is not until over half the journey to Boston is completed that the line meets the Atlantic Ocean and the scenery becomes striking. This is the Eastern Seaboard and there are numerous rocky shorelines, quiet bays, tidal inlets and rivers, with beautiful timber ‘clap-board’ houses perched at the waters edge, or gathered in hamlets and towns.
As we approach Boston the train stops for signals and does not start. Rajesh calls, he is sitting in his car outside the downtown station with not much time to spare and wonders where I am. We start moving again and pull into Boston a short time later, the rain now beating a tattoo over the city. Rajesh has a flight to London to catch leaving in a little under two hours, so we are no sooner at his home – greeting Lisa and the children – and he is out the door to a taxi idling in the rain.
11th March
“…I ask myself, is it possible for me to convey to the student the quality of this intention?”
Poughkeepsie has seen better days. On the banks of the Hudson river, 80 miles due north of NYC, it was once a flourishing port with papermills, hatteries and breweries, one of the latter being owned by Matthew Vassar, founder of Vassar College. This is where Vinay and I have come to learn more about his place of work; he is an assistant professor in the French Department. The college is a little separate from the town and does not appear to have suffered the same decline. I sit in on the talk given by the Dean of Admissions to a number of fresh-faced high-school students and parents.
The Dean is a fast talker with an outrageous tie and a persuasive manner, he explains to us that this is a small college, with a little over 3,000 students and this year 8,000 applicants have applied for 650 places. If it has a student profile it might best be described as attracting bright students who dislike the conservatism of the Ivy League colleges. One of the features of the college is that is it does not offer any post-graduate studies, so all of the resources are directed towards undergraduates and they are always taught by professors to whom they have ready access. The college is also ‘Needs Blind’ meaning that if the Admissions Department accepts a student they then inform the Finance Department that the student can enter the college regardless of the money the student has and the Finance Department must provide any shortfall. This is relatively rare amongst US colleges now.
All quotations are taken from the ‘Whole Movement of Life is Learning’ by Krishnamurti.
9th March
“So I am beginning to perceive that intelligence is totally different from the activity of thought.”
Breakfast at the Ojai Coffee Roasting Co. before starting the drive to LAX. It is still very early with the sky completely clear and the mountain tops touched with pale orange light. I put the raga sonatas for piano of Michael R. on the CD player and they start off quietly, like the early morning commuter traffic, and then both change.
The flight to New York City reminds me that this is a massive country with a lot of very empty space between a number of smaller crowded spaces. You have a couple of hours on the ground at Kansas City in a new airport that is entirely constructed out of stone, steel and ceramics in the colours of the winter landscape surrounding it: shades of brown and grey predominate. It is remarkably effective in communicating that this is the heartland and they are more connected to the earth here than they are in the place you have just left, or the one to which you are headed.
