Hurstpierpoint College - Creative Arts

Creative Arts

Drama, Dance, Art and Music all feature prominently in life at Hurst, as the College has a strong emphasis on the extracurricular.

The College has a strong tradition of Drama, with the oldest Shakespearian Society in existence. In 2009 Hurst mounted a total of 18 separate productions, which between them put on 40 performances. These included various student directed and lead productions, the annual Shakespeare production, the Shell Shakespeare Festival, the annual musical, the House Drama Competition, the Drama gap student's production, other staff directed productions and an annual contribution to the Hurst Festival. There have also been regular theatre trips abroad. Most recently the College toured China with King Lear for two weeks. There are also a number of evening workshops, including "Acting in Front of a Camera", which used HD video cameras and playback on a projector to teach the students.

Art at Hurst is housed in the Art Department opened by David Shepherd (artist) in 2003. The department runs various art workshops, activities and evening sessions including Life Drawing held by Royal Academy of Art School graduate Peter Harrap

Musical life, too, has something of a tradition in the college with old masters including Thomas Fielden (musician) and Nicholas Chisholm (current Headmaster of the Yehudi Menuhin School).There are regular concerts and recitals and an annual House Music Competition called the "House Shout". There is a large school choir of 125, as well as a smaller group that make up the Chamber Choir, which performs choral evensong in various cathedrals during the year. Their most recent performance was at Salisbury Cathedral.