PUPILS at a school near Steep spent an exciting and informative week recreating Norse legends and composing harp music under the watchful eye of a professional musician.
Pupils at Bedales prep school, Dunhurst, brought the Norse myths to life in a dynamic and compelling refashioning of the ancient stories in the stage play, Burning Ice, Biting Flame.
It retold the legend of the Nine Worlds of Yggdrasil being tricked into self-destruction by the god Loki, who plays the worlds off against each other, culminating in the end of the world.
Stage play author and head of drama at Dunhurst Simon Kingsley-Pallant said: “The stories are very potent, full of vitality and adventure, and should be much better known. Essentially the gods are a highly dysfunctional extended family, always bickering and competing with one another, sometimes with lethal results, and the cast thoroughly enjoyed playing these powerful yet flawed beings.”
And music students at the school enjoyed a visit from professional harpist, Olivia Jageurs, and spent the morning learning about contemporary harp techniques and the intricacies of harp pedals before composing their own music for Olivia and baritone singer Philip Guy-Bromley to perform for school.