Honouring our Chairman’s Circle with a special event

On Thursday 19 January, we were delighted to welcome our Chairman’s Circle—some of the School’s biggest supporters—and their guests, to a special event at Upper School to express our gratitude for their enduring generosity. We also welcomed our School Governors and Governors of The Royal Ballet and some of the artistic luminaries shaping the future of ballet who we’re lucky to consider friends of the School.

This group of supporters allows the School to not only strive for excellence as a world-class artistic institution, but also to actively widen access and create opportunities for more people to engage with ballet, offer scholarships, bursaries, and new training programmes online and around the country, ever more important in these testing times.

Guests were treated to a bespoke programme of performances from our students, as well as a Q&A with alumni of the School and now Royal Ballet Principals, Matthew Ball and Steven McRae, and a speech from our Chairman.

Alongside much-loved heritage works by Sir Frederick Ashton, Upper School students also performed a thrilling mix of pieces from across the classical and contemporary spectrum. They danced The Card Scene from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and excerpts from Within the Golden Hour, both by one of our most acclaimed alumni, Christopher Wheeldon, and also gave a special presentation of Rudolf Nureyev’s Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker .

We were so pleased to have welcomed these important guests and to celebrate their generous support of the School as well as demonstrate the incredible abilities of the students here.

Find out more about ways to support the School.