Winter Concert 2025

Thank you to all who came to the Eleanor Palmer’s Winter Concert 2025; a celebration of music and poetry and bringing us together as a school community.

Our songs are woven together by poems with the theme of light, including a lyrical poem which runs through the entire Concert - Firefly, by Robert Mcfarlane. 

Using the image of a firefly—small, brief, and easily extinguished—Macfarlane explores how tiny acts of care, attention, and kindness still shine, even when the world feels damaged or uncertain. At its heart, Firefly is about holding on to wonder, and recognising that quiet beauty can still guide us through darkness.

Congratulations to all the children who read so beautifully, to those playing guitar and ukulele and to every child who sang with such enthusiasm  - what an uplifting afternoon!

Winter Concert 2025

 

Firefly: A Celebration of Light

In the shadows of November, 

when the coldest wind is blowing,
in the darkness of December, 

through the winter’s steepest snowing
when the world is steep in camber, 

and all hope is downwards-flowing
then’s the time to seek what’s glowing.

Find and gather; bring together
- stream’s bright gleam and river’s silver;
Rowan’s berry, Saturn’s glimmer;
snowdrifts shine and comets shimmer.

But then comes - oh!

slip and snap,
stumble, tumble - 

plunge and plummet;
hard then to haul up your heavy heart;
find your feet; make another fresh start.

But that’s the hour you must muster
all the glint and all the luster:
glowworm; foxfire; jack-o’-lantern;
show their light to all that’s somber.

Banish ghost and banish phantom;
that’s the night to dream of fireflies, 

meteors of the meadow grasses,
lightning bolts and shooting stars.

Glittering ghosts; electric angels;
supernovas, pulsars, quasars;
halos, auras, Ursa Majors,
trace and join these fallen constellations.

And when the shadows come again, remember:
cup each wick and tend each ember;
fuse and flow the sparks together -
turn flash to flame, to blaze, to pyre.