A CELEBRATION OF QUEERNESS IN CLASSICAL MUSIC ALMA SAMOCHA

ISSY JEYES // MARTA KALPACHKI // RUBY PERRY // VANESSA REN

47% 47% OF STUDENTS DO NOT RECYCLE WHILST AT SCHOOL

QUICK FIX: INCORPORATE INTO PSHE LESSONS WHAT CAN BE RECYCLED AND WHERE TO RECYLE IN THE SCHOOL

To begin the survey, we asked students about their use of single-use water bottles, as plastic waste is a significant contributor to pollution. 21% of surveyed students said that they buy bottled water rather than filling reusable bottles with tap water at school. The general consensus is that there are too few water fountains around the school and therefore queues at break are long, making them inaccessible.

Many people also stated that they did not like the taste of the water (thanks to our chalky cliffs!) and worry that the tap water may contain impurities and therefore be unhealthy.

And whilst we can reassure you that all the drinking water at Roedean is entirely safe to consume, 81% of surveyed students responded positively to the suggestion of using a filtered water bottle which will filter out any impurities you may still be worried about!

Water Recycling

We then asked students how often they recycle and what it is that prevents them from doing so more often. 47% of surveyed students said that they do not use recycling bins at school, whilst 64% felt that there are not enough accessible recycling bins around the school to allow them to do so.

One student said, “I don’t know where the recycling bins are, and therefore only use general waste bins”, but explained that they would be happy to recycle their waste at school if the recycling bins were more accessible.

Another student stated more simply, “I have never seen a recycling bin... ever.”

64% 21%

64% OF STUDENTS FELT THE RECYCLING AT SCHOOL IS NOT CURRENTLY ACCESSIBLE ENOUGH

QUICK FIX: MORE RECYCLING BINS. IN THE MEANTIME, LOOK OUT FOR ORANGE-LID PAPER RECYCLING BINS

ONES.

QUICK FIX: MORE WATER FOUNTAINS, LOOK TO INVEST IN A REUSABLE BOTTLE

Much of the waste that we produce as a school comes from food waste and school stationery. Two big changes that we would like to make in the near future, for which students have shown support, are the categorisation/separation of food waste and the recycling of folders. 78% of surveyed students were enthusiastic towards the idea of separating food waste, recycling, and general waste at meal times meaning our overall waste at meal times would decrease as more would be recycled or composted. 77% of surveyed students said they would be happy to re-use either their own or someone else’s folder for their schoolwork.

SO... WHAT NEXT?

Large organisations such as schools have significant impacts on the environment and therefore have the largest responsibility of all to control impacts on both the local and wider environment. It is clear that we as a community still have a long way to go before we can confidently call ourselves a “sustainable school” but many of these concerns can be rectified in the near-future with help from you!

80 surveyed students said that they would be enthusiastic to join an eco-council to share ideas and concerns about sustainability at Roedean and make productive changes throughout the upcoming years. If you are interested in being a part of this positive change at Roedean, please email Issy (IJ37) and Marta (MK48) with your name, year group, why you would make a great team member, and any ideas or concerns you may already have. We look forward to hearing all of your brilliant ideas on making Roedean a more sustainable environment!

WHAT A BOTTLE!

We have compiledput a few of our favourite refillable bottles for a certain 21% of the student body....

CHILLYS SERIES 2 .5L (£30)

Chillys’ newest collection won the red dot innovation award (and we understand why...).

The collection is available in selection of gorg colours and features flasks of the same selection... matching drinkware? I think yes.

LARQ FILTERED .7L (£58)

LARQ’s filtration system is unrivalled...currently a dual layered charcoal and ‘Nano Zero’ filter removes impurities from water whilst keeping water cold for 24 hours. It also looks super sleek.

From Britten and Tchaikovsky to Schubert and Chopin, our knowledge of queer writers in the sphere of Western Classical music ranges from assurance to mere speculation; nevertheless it is easy to observe that sexuality within the world of composition appears on as broad a spectrum as in any other community.

academic speculation as to whether his death in 1893 is attributable to cholera or to suicide. It is worth considering, in light of such a multifaceted experience, a potential connection between the talented composer’s sexuality, his nationality and the unique voice for which his music is celebrated internationally to this day.

intrinsicality of music to their relationship may be best admired in Pears’ communications to Britten, saying “You know love is blind ... I am here as your mouthpiece and I live in your music”.

HYDROFLASK .5L (£20)

Ok so... hydroflasks had their moment in 2020, but their new collection is defo worthy of resurrection from the graveyard where trends go to die. Totally leakproof, and vacuum- insulated? Sign us up! (we’ll leave the stickers at the door this time).

Born in Votkinsk at a time when homosexuality was illegal in Russia, Tchaikovsky - known widely for ballets such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, or for his cannonfeaturing 1812 Overtureatappears the epicentre of many discussions about homosexuality in the world of Classical music. Tchaikovsky’s complicated relationship with his sexuality is well recorded among biographers and historians, yet stands at odds with the national ideology of his homeland and thus acquires an element of complexity when considered by the modern Western listener; his significant contributions to Russian musical tradition and the distinct elements of nationalist influence within his writing serve to underscore (pun mildly intended) the composer’s divided circumstance as a musician of great reputation living in a state of queer oppression. Indeed of his nationalism, Joshua Taylor identifies (Taylor J., “Musically Russian: Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century,” 2016) a sense of restraint. The music of Tchaikovsky is characterised not by deferral to the words of Russian poetry or the melodies of national folk songs, but instead through a persistent recollection of the national mood, and in occasional reference to the characteristics typical of Russian folk and popular music at the time.

Although immensely successful as a musician, Tchaikovsky experienced numerous struggles as a gay man in the 19th century, undergoing a disastrous marriage to former student Antonina Miliukovan, facing an emotional crisis in its wake and leaving desperatelyfrom romantic - “My darling heart ... I do love you so terribly, not only glorious you, but your singing. ... What have I done to deserve such an artist and man to write for? ... I love you, I love you, I love you.” - to rather humorous in nature - “My most beautiful of all little blue grey, mouse catching, pearly creamy-thighed,bottomed,soft-waisted mewing rat-pursuers! How are you? My beauty!” - the exchanges between Britten and Pears narrate a passionate and joyful partnership.

Meanwhile British musical treasure, and renowned composer of operas such as The Turn of the Screw and War Requiem, Benjamin Britten, held a private relationship of 39 years with tenor singer Peter Pears, to whom he remained partnered until his death in 1976. Britten’s homosexuality, though kept discreet throughout his life, is remarkable in the extent to which it is freely expressed and celebrated between himself and his lover - particularly within the letters exchanged between the two, the extracts of which were posthumously displayed at the composer’s home in RangingSuffolk.

The lovers worked in collaboration as musicians, with Pears serving as a muse for Britten’s worksamong them Britten’s Canticle I: “My Beloved is mine and I am his”, and his Leibestodian opera, Death in Venice. While the tenor played roles in several of his partner’s operas, providing a demonstration of the bridge between professional and personal in the lives of the two artists, the

More ambiguously, academic speculations on the sexual orientation of Romantic composer Chopin explore alternate translations of his letters on the subject of love. Though not aiming to demonstrate that the composer was categorically gay, contributors to the discussion raise the point that Chopin’s assumed heterosexuality is more than worthy of a more thorough review, and that the role of femininity in relation to his music is a complex deservingone of attention.

Of writingSchubert, only a few decades before Chopin, critics traverse a range theoriesof regarding the particular devotion to his music among men’s choruses in Vienna, and again on the varying translations of the composer’s personal writings. Reviewing a series of theses set forth on the subject, Edward Rothstein concludes, “Does it matter?”. He reminds us that the consideration of Schubertand by extension, of any similar individual in musical tradition - as a contemporary figure of queer representation can only pale in comparison to the revelations of his nature as heard and experienced through his writing, ‘knowing, caressing and tragic’.

It is true that the most powerful voice we can offer to musicians is their music. Yet in recognizing and celebrating not only a diversity of identity - here unexplored to its full depth, and extending far beyond the sphere of cisgender male composers - but a connection between queer love and creative expression within the field of composition, we pave a path for the future pursuit of music to occur in tandem with a pursuit of freedom, equality and self-expression.