Simona Snitkovskaya, Russian opera coach with Opera San Jose, visited the upper school on Sept. 25 to speak to some of Susan Nace’s music students. An accomplished pianist with a vast knowledge of Russian music, Snitkovskaya has coached professional singers hoping to expand their repertoire of Russian music, helping them with their pronunciation, diction and interpretation.
She began by sharing with the students some of the history of Russian classical music and its key figures. “Russian music basically came from non-professional composers,” she said. “The first composers we had, they all did it for fun. It was their hobby.”
Among Russia’s first notable professional composers were Modest Mussorgsky, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
The class was later joined by professional opera singers Kindra Scharich and Kirk Eichelberger, who shared their experiences learning how to perform Russian music. While studying music, Eichelberger said, “We have to learn, in addition to English, French, German, Italian and a lot of Latin.” The only way to learn how to perform in Russian was to do so independently. “It was long and painstaking, but so worth it.”
“Each language has its own music,” Scharich said. “Just to be able to make those sounds is part of the music of the language. You get a whole new palette of sounds that you can deal with.”
The singers then performed some pieces in Russian, demonstrating their hard-earned command of the language.
The Harker School’s global education and performing arts departments were thrilled to warmly welcome more than two dozen students who recently visited from Saint Stephen’s College, a college preparatory independent school located on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
Accompanied by three chaperones, the group of 25 performing arts students were at Harker from Sept. 22-26. After spending their first weekend upon arrival checking in at a nearby hotel and going on an all-day tour of San Francisco, they got off to a bright and early start Monday morning at Harker. Their first day here began with an early breakfast in the upper school’s bistro followed by a tour of the campus.
The group’s packed performing arts itinerary included visits to Harker’s theater, music, choreography and acting classes, as well as a special observation of a rehearsal of the fall play, “Hamlet,” followed by dinner.
According to Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education, the visit went extremely well and was part of a larger performing arts tour of the United States that the Australian exchange students and their chaperones were taking.
“They had spent six days in New York City before coming to San Jose for five days, with their tour ending down in Los Angeles. They enjoyed visiting a wide variety of performing arts classes here at Harker, as well as attending regular classes to see how the American educational system works,” she said.
Especially gratifying to Walrod was the fact that numerous performing arts students at Harker helped out with the visit, accompanying Saint Stephen’s students for breakfast and lunch, escorting them to and from classes, and even joining them for a fun night out shopping and dining at Santana Row.
During the past decade, Harker has enjoyed a warm relationship and mutually beneficial exchange program with Saint Stephen’s College. Last year, Ruth Meyer, an upper school history teacher, spent two weeks in Australia at the college as part of that year’s teacher exchange program. Meyer spent most of her time teaching freshman history and junior English to the school’s students, who she said were like Harker students in that, “they are happy, helpful and enjoy school.” English teacher Jennifer Siraganian enjoyed the exchange this past summer (see Harker Quarterly, fall 2012).
“We have also hosted two previous summer upper school trips where students visited Saint Stephen’s, attended their weeklong leadership retreat, and stayed in homestays. Plus their exchange students and teachers always visit our middle and lower schools to read stories and talk about Australian history,” added Walrod.
The 13th annual Howard and Diana Nichols Invitational debate tournament took place at the upper school campus Sept. 28-30, bringing in 208 students from 28 schools in California, Arizona and Washington. Because Harker qualified for the Tournament of Champions, Harker students were not permitted to participate in the main tournament, but Harker students did participate in the novice and tournament experience workshops. Nikhil Bopardikar and Anish Velagapudi, both grade 9, were in the top 20 in the novice division.
Harker students were instrumental in ensuring that the tournament and the novice workshop were run smoothly. “Student leaders organized and did the majority of teaching at the workshop. They also oversaw the timely management of the varsity tournament and managed our student workers. Our parents hosted visiting students in their homes, served meals and judged debates,” said Carol Green, chair of Harker’s communication studies department.
One student from Foothill High School commented the tournament was “extremely well run. Not only was the judging pool outstanding, but I really felt like The Harker School cared. The students were all around helping directing us, while there was a help desk and delicious food. Adding on to that, the rooms in which we debated were really nice also.”
Tara Rezvani, grade 12, was recognized at Los Gatos’ Youth Park Citizen Day on Sept. 29 for being chosen as one of Los Gatos’ Youth Citizens of the Year. She joined other recipients of the honor in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at the Oct. 1 Los Gatos Town Council meeting, where she had the opportunity to meet Los Gatos mayor Steve Rice.
Los Gatos Youth Park Inc. selects local youths each year based on their service to their communities and status as role models. Among Rezvani’s many accomplishments are organizing a health camp for children, volunteer work at El Camino Hospital and being inducted into the National French Honor Society. Rezvani will also take part in Los Gatos’ holiday tree-lighting ceremony on Nov. 30 and blow the whistle to start the Los Gatos Children’s Holiday Parade on Dec. 1.
This article was originally published in the fall 2012 Harker Quarterly.
Parents of Harker’s very first upper school graduating class in 2002 established the now annual tradition of a senior parent appreciation gift as a way of showing their thanks for their Harker experience.
“It was structured so that any incremental giving to the annual giving campaign over and above what a family had given during the previous year would go to fund a beautification project on campus,” explained Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, noting that plaques have been placed in areas that have been beautified, commemorating each of the students’ families who participated in making that year’s senior parent gift.
Last year, the parents of the graduating class added a new feature to the tradition, requesting that the money be used to establish a class fund that will become part of the school’s general endowment. The 2012 Class Fund was established with their cumulative gifts of approximately $35,000.
“Alumni and alumni parents are welcome to continue to make gifts each year to their class funds as a part of their annual giving gifts. And students will thus be able to benefit from this generosity year after year in perpetuity,” said Rosenthal.
This article was originally published in the fall 2012 Harker Quarterly.
Members of Harker’s Key Club had a productive spring, collecting clothing, toys and food for the Sacred Heart Community Center and donating animal carrier crates and raising $1,100 for the Silicon Valley Humane Society.
The funds were raised by selling baked goods and root beer floats. Additionally, one student anonymously donated $500 towards the cause.
Kerry Enzensperger, director of the upper school community service and activity program, reported that Key Club participants were thrilled with the results.
The Key Club is part of an international high school organization sponsored by Kiwanis International. Key Club members assist Kiwanis in carrying out its mission to serve the children of the world.
This article originally appeared in the fall 2012 Harker Quarterly.
Good morning. I’d like to welcome the board of Trustees, administration, faculty, staff, and the classes of 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 to today’s matriculation ceremony. Matriculation is a tradition at the Harker upper school during which all freshmen and new students commit themselves, by signature and oath, to the values of honesty and fellowship, among others. You can walk the halls of the campus knowing that all of your classmates have committed themselves to these values.
Mr. Keller and I have the privilege of offering a few words today. Most of the time these brief addresses take the form of an aspiration we have for the student body, something we hope you will keep in mind during the year.
You will be relieved to hear that I am continuing the tradition of confining my aspiration for you to one page of single-space, size 12 font.
Today I want to talk about jam sessions and my hope that you will have many of them this year. What do I mean by jam sessions? They have nothing to do with jelly. On good days, when I have the fortitude, I begin my day with a short run in my neighborhood and a brief meditation on my front balcony. Meditation, it has been said, is an activity done for its own sake. If you are meditating to become a better person or some other purpose then you are not meditating. The philosopher Alan Watts describes meditation as a sort of digging the present moment. Getting with the universe. Perhaps Will Smith would call meditation, “Getting jiggy with it.”
When I meditate I face east, where I am from, and often my thoughts drift to my past. Recently while I was meditating, thoughts of my friends from junior high and high school floated up. I recalled how we used to have what we called “jam sessions,” by which we meant two distinct activities. First, and most obvious, we held musical jam sessions, during which we improvised, or jammed, and played rock songs popular at the time. I played the drums and a little bass guitar while my friends played other instruments. They were all more skillful musicians than I was but none of that mattered at the time. We played music just to play music, to swing with it, to get with the universe.
The second activity, less obvious, was getting together and talking all night, just to talk. We talked about everything: music, authors, teachers, parents, friends, the future, girls and more girls. We talked just to talk, and this, too, was a form of improvisation, a digging the moment.
This is what I hope for you in your high school career, many jam sessions, and not necessarily in the form of music or discussion although those are perfectly fine ways to jam. What I want for you is the spirit of jam sessions, getting lost in an activity for its own sake.
This is the point of most religions, though an often forgotten point. It is also the meaning of music and dance. Alan Watts points out that music and dance are activities done for their own sakes, that music and dance are significant of themselves, not something else. We don’t dance to get to a specific place in the room, nor do we play music to reach the end of the song. The original spirit of religious activity is to put you in touch with the powers of the life so that you understand that those powers are you. That is why people sing in church, to “get with it,” “it” meaning everything. That is a jam session.
I remember chaperoning a sick student on a bus in Washington, D.C. He was sleeping in the back and two local bus drivers were in the front bantering about who was the best prophet in the bible. One bus driver said that Ezekiel was the best prophet there ever was. The two started working themselves up in a religious frenzy, right there. One said he was having a moment. The two didn’t need a church or a preacher. The bus was their church, the spirit of the moment their preacher.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this “flow,” when the doer and the deed, the actor and the activity are one. My friends and I called them jam sessions. Whatever you call them, I wish for you today that you get lost in some activity for its own sake, without regard to grades, popularity, college admissions or outcomes of any kind. It is hard to do and probably unrealistic to want to be this way all the time. But if you taste it once or more, as many of you have, you will at least get a glimpse of what it is like to not exist, to be one with an activity, a cause, something greater than yourself. If you have a jam session you may find something bigger than yourself to love, or you may find that you yourself are more, way more, than you ever imagined. Thank you.
Gillian Wallin, grade 10, performed with her band, AUX Input, at the Celebrate Saratoga street festival on Sept. 16. Wallin, who also plays in the upper school jazz band, plays drums in the band, which performed for the thousands of patrons who attend the festival each year.
In August, Stephanie Chen, grade 11, received word that she had earned a second place award in the Ayn Rand Institute’s “Anthem” Essay Contest, in which high school students submit analytical essays on Rand’s influential novella. For her effort, Chen won a $500 prize.
Chen, who entered the most recent contest during her grade 10 year, first entered the contest while in grade 9 and was named a semifinalist. She attributed much of her success in her second attempt to her grade 10 English class with teacher Jennifer Siraganian.
The class of 2015 split into two groups and visited ropes courses in La Honda and Santa Cruz on Sept. 24 to participate in exercises designed to build trust and teamwork in the students. Harker journalism students captured the full story, which is posted at TalonWP.com.