On Saturday evening, August 13, Riley School alumni and their families spread out across the campus to enjoy the sounds of steel drum band Pen Bay Pans. The steel band’s performance was held on the deck of the theatre while all the campers watched, danced, and participated. 

Kyle von Neumann, director of the group of musicians, recently joined the faculty of the Riley School and will be incorporating steel drum playing within his music and cultural studies classrooms.

“This is a joyous use of our amazing campus that allowed us to recognize the strength of our community and the many and varied paths of our alumni,” said Head of School Rebecca Clapp, remarking on the school’s past, present, and even the future gathered all around her.

“Tonight, we have graduates who have returned to the area, now enrolling their children, and serving on our board, former students who immediately (and characteristically) jumped in to help care for the campus animals, current and former faculty, new families who came by to enroll, graduates off to Vassar and to Northeastern, this year’s graduates off to Watershed, Lincoln Academy, Medomack and Camden Hills,” she said. “So many experiences, paths, perspectives, with a core shared value around respecting and trusting children as learners - and of one another as caretakers of our children, campus, and community.”

Ending the evening on a perfect note, though too cloudy to see Persieds Meteor Shower, were the look of the smiles and the sounds of laughter you heard across campus.