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Renowned saxophonist, composer and educator Mike Hall kept QE’s senior musicians on their toes with a masterclass on jazz improvisation.

His hour-long, richly illustrated, online talk focused on examples of improvisation by two of the jazz greats, Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis.

The boys now have a couple of weeks to submit recordings of their own improvisations before Mike runs another two masterclasses in which he will offer them direct feedback on their work.

Director of Music Ruth Partington said: “This was a great event and we are very lucky to be able to welcome a player of Mike’s stature ‘to’ QE. At this time of year, we would normally be holding our annual Jazz Evening, so the timing of this first masterclass was particularly appropriate.

“Mike’s talk combined the perfect mix of approachability with some challenging concepts for our advanced students. He talked about how to improvise over chords using the notes of the chord, about guide tones and about specific scales such as minor pentatonics.

“And he included some live demonstrations on Zoom: it was wonderful to hear him play.

“The audience clearly enjoyed his presentation, and there were some interesting questions at the end.”

The class briefly covered the history of jazz, with Mike stressing that it is an “aural music…[that] should be learned initially by listening to and emulating great players”. He moved on to the specifics of improvisation, including the need to acquire the requisite skills, such as “strengthening the connection between your ears and fingers”.

Mike was Head of Jazz Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music for 20 years, during which time he directed well over 100 concerts with the RNCM Big Band.  He still teaches at the RNCM and has also taught at many jazz summer schools and been a consultant and composer for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM – a Music examinations board).

He began with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and then spent 20 years with Michael Garrick, the late English jazz pianist and composer – a period which saw them tour Malaysia as well as make several CD recordings and national radio broadcasts.

Today, Mike is a regular member of the Echoes of Ellington Orchestra and runs his own jazz duo, quartet and octet, for which he also writes.

A video of the masterclass can be seen on the QE Music department’s YouTube channel.

A QE team have won the Year 11 category in the Bank of England’s schools film competition with their analysis of the likely lasting effects of the pandemic on business and employment.

Abir Mohammed, Dhruv Syam and Ansh Jassra put together a polished three-minute film featuring footage from around the world on the competition theme of The changing workplace: same spaces, new realities. The 2020 competition, entitled Bank Camera, Action, challenged entrants to explore the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the way we work, on jobs and on the economy.

Congratulating the boys on their success, the judges in the annual competition said they enjoyed watching the boys’ film, The Bank of QE, and were impressed by their filmmaking skills.

QE teacher of Economics Krishna Shah said: “I am extremely proud of the three of them and delighted that all their hard work in putting the film together has been rewarded.”

All three boys took on the role of producer, with Abir also acting as editor, while Dhruv was the narrator and Abir and Ansh were both interviewed on-camera.

The film looked at the possible permanent impacts of the pandemic both on individuals and on different sectors of the economy. The boys stated, for example, that:

• Those without access to the technology needed for remote working could lose out, leading to a possible rise in inequality;
• Small firms could find themselves unable to compete with large businesses on economies of scale;
• Unlike those in “on-line service hubs”, such as London, people living in areas of the country concentrated on manufacturing could find it difficult to work from home, putting such areas at risk of mass unemployment and poverty.

It considered the environmental benefits of reduced levels of commuting and outlined possible technological solutions to the difficulties in maintaining work-life balance that working from home often entails, such as using separate electronic devices for work and personal life and screen-time blocking apps.

And Dhruv added: “New technologies have the potential to transform the future of work – things like low-latency whiteboards and faster 5G internet completely bringing back the spontaneity of the office.

“Ultimately, the question is not whether remote working is here to stay, but to what extent.

“Most firms will choose a mixture of both [office working and working from home], but even small shifts in global work patterns will have a profound effect on all our lives. Let’s see what the future holds,” Dhruv concluded.

They won £300 for the School to spend on filmmaking equipment, as well as a £25 Amazon eGift voucher each and a certificate signed by Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey.

• The film may be viewed on the Bank of England’s competition web page here.

Benjamin Cohen, founder and CEO of PinkNews, dotcom success story and broadcaster, spoke to current pupils as part of LGBT+ History Month.

Benjamin, who was at QE from 1993–1998, took part in a video conversation with the School’s Student Leadership Team and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Ambassadors.

The session was recorded so that it can be used by form tutors to stimulate discussion among all year groups as an eQE online resource within QE’s personal development and wellbeing programme.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “Our students will take courage and inspiration from all Ben had to say when reflecting on his career, the success of PinkNews, equal marriage, Section 28, religion and much more besides.”

Benjamin launched PinkNews, a UK-based online newspaper, in 2005. PinkNews describes itself on its website as “the brand for the global LGBT+ community and the next generation”.

But before that, Benjamin had already made his mark as a serial entrepreneur in the dot.com boom around the start of the new millennium.

After leaving QE, he created JewishNet, which he describes as “Britain’s first social network before the term was invented”. It grew rapidly, making him worth £5m at one point.

Soon after, he established CyberBritain – “a dot.com darling for a couple of years” – which, among other things, launched a UK-specific search engine powered by its own technology and attempted to launch a service similar to Spotify.

For much of his time with CyberBritain, Benjamin was also an undergraduate at King’s College London.

He went on to be a columnist for The Times, corporate advisor for ITN, business & technology correspondent for Channel 4, a PR director, and, from 2010 until 2017, was a presenter for the BBC, where his work included writing and presenting a critically acclaimed documentary, I was a teenage dot.com millionaire. He is also a longstanding UK trustee and non-executive director of Humanity & Inclusion, a global disability development charity.

He explained the importance to PinkNews’ success of its leading role in the campaigns to legalise same-sex marriage: “Since then, we have just grown and grown and grown.” Having expanded further during lockdown, PinkNews now has more than 40 people working for it and 50m consuming its content monthly, he said.

During his talk, there was plenty of time for questions from the boys, which Benjamin was happy to answer.

Asked about whether religion comes into conflict with LGBT rights, Benjamin, who comes from a Jewish background, said it was partly to explore such questions that he had chosen his degree subject – Religion, Philosophy and Ethics – at Kings. “Some faiths have moved on quite a way, but others still have a long way to go,” he said, reflecting that families often found their own ways to adapt, including that of his (non-Jewish) husband.

Questioned on barriers still facing LGBT people, including school pupils, Benjamin spoke of how much things had changed in schools from when he was a pupil. At that time, the ‘Section 28’ law that made the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ illegal in state schools was still in force. “This would have been literally against the law,” he said, referring to the discussion.

Today, the situation was very different, he said. “With me as a gay man, I can pretty much do everything I want within the UK…but trans people do face some challenges.

“It generally takes an example – so, if a student was to come out as trans or something, that would create the atmosphere to enable pupils [and] the school to move on.”

He reflected that there was a growing acceptance in society that families can differ from traditional patterns.

Benjamin, who applauded QE’s policies in areas of sexuality and relationships, said that the national introduction of ‘compulsory Sex and Religious Education’ over the last year had been a significant step: “We are in a pretty good place.”

The latest episode of the Roundness podcast series from The Queen’s Library highlights the grave unintended consequences that can arise from man-made changes to the environment.

Podcaster Surya Bowyer, QE’s Head of Library Services, warns that we disregard the “interconnectedness of the world’s natural systems” at our peril in a 36-minute episode that features a variety of expert voices and spans the globe, from Egypt and Ethiopia to France and Spain, and from the Amazon to the US.

But he begins the episode in one particular location, inviting his listeners to consider the extraordinary case of the pupfish – in fact, of one specific pupfish whom he names ‘Steve’. Steve, he explains, is a Sonoyta pupfish, a rare and threatened breed that is specially adapted to cope with the harsh conditions – extreme heat, very salty water and lack of oxygen – found in the waterways of the Sonoran desert straddling Mexico and Arizona. It is thought to live in an area covering only around four square miles.

“What Steve ‘knows’ is that during the breeding season, his scales turn an intense bright blue in an attempt to try and woo Linda, Brenda and the other pupfish,” Mr Bowyer says.

Understanding Steve’s remarkable metabolism – including his ability to produce alcohol – could hold benefits for medical science, Mr Bowyer says. “By considering the pupfish we could gain a better understanding of cancer cells.”

Yet, he says, the Sonoyta pupfish’s very existence is threatened by the damage done to the environment by the construction of the border wall ordered by former US President Donald Trump.

Mr Bowyer then looks at the negative effects that overlooking environmental issues has had across the world and throughout history. He recounts the fatal outcome for one 12^th-century French nobleman poisoned by another type of fish living in a polluted environment.

And he reflects on the changes in economics – a discipline which used to characterise environmental concerns as mere ‘negative externalities’, but is now increasingly understanding that the unexpected knock-on effects of pollution make it impossible to regard environmental factors in isolation.

The Consider the pupfish episode of the Roundness podcast is available from the Library pages of the eQE online platform and from normal podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

A national French debating competition is to become an annual fixture in the QE calendar after two Sixth Form teams showed the way with strong performances.

With only a week’s notice, Anshul Sajip and Zeke Essex, of Year 13, and Awad Shah and Vineeth Rajan, of Year 12, volunteered for QE’s first appearance in the Joutes Oratoires*.

In the debates, which were held virtually after school hours, the QE linguists had both to defend and to oppose three motions, covering civil liberties, the environment and artificial intelligence.

Congratulating them for their enthusiastic participation in the event organised in this region by St Paul’s Girls’ School, Languages Assistant Joelle Simpson, said: “The motions would not be altogether easy to support or defend in English, let alone in the French language!

“Both teams received strong scores throughout, and Awad and Vineeth won two out of three of their debates,” said Mme Simpson, who prepared the teams.

“They all found the experience a very valuable one and blazed a trail for future cohorts. Thanks to them, the event will become an annual feature in the QE calendar.”

Unfortunately, with 39 teams competing in the London region and only eight able to proceed, the two QE teams did not reach the next round.

The three motions were:

1. Governments should have leeway to limit individual liberties in times of health crises
2. Green economic growth is an illusion
3. Artificial Intelligence is a threat for humanity.

QE’s Head of Languages, Nora Schlatte, was a member of the jury, and saw Vineeth and Awad in action. “Their research, poise and accuracy of language were amazing,” she said “Vineeth’s opening speech was described as ‘un modèle du genre’ [a model of its kind] and both boys responded very well to some challenging questions. Participating in something like this, especially remotely, is really daunting and they did brilliantly.”

* The term joutes oratoires dates back to the Middle Ages in France, when jouteurs (literally ‘jousters’) would duel in verse.