Harker’s upper school orchestra has just returned from London, where they performed during the New Year’s celebration and participated in the city’s New Year’s Day Parade. During their performance at Cadogan Hall on Dec. 31, the orchestra, directed by upper school music teacher Chris Florio, performed “Overture to Candide” by Leonard Bernstein, “Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1” by Ralph Vaughan Williams and the famous “Overture to William Tell” by Gioachino Rossini. During their stay, the students also had the opportunity to see many of England’s most famous locations and landmarks, including the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey, Stratford-upon-Avon and the City University of Oxford.
Watch this space for more information and photos in the near future!
This article originally appeared in the winter 2011 Harker Quarterly.
Almost 200 high school students visited Nichols Hall on Oct. 22 for the first ever, independently organized TEDx Harker School event, put together by Neeraj Baid and Neel Bhoopalam, both grade 11. Headlined by keynote speaker Guy Kawasaki, the event featured five top entrepreneurs, each offering unique perspectives and advice to the young audience.
As chief evangelist at Apple in the 1980s, Kawasaki helped bring developers to Apple’s Macintosh platform. During his introduction, he asked how many members of the audience used Macs. Upon seeing the vast majority of the attendees raise their hands, he grinned and remarked, “I love to see that.”
With Steve Jobs still in headlines due to his recent passing, Kawasaki’s presentation focused on key lessons he learned from the late celebrity businessman and inventor. “I’m one of the few people who survived working for him twice,” he joked.
The first such lesson was, “Experts are clueless.” “If there’s anything that Apple has proven,” he said, “it’s that experts are often wrong.” He encouraged the audience to “learn to ignore experts.
“This may be contrary to what you’ve been taught, but experts usually define things within established limits, and I think you should break those limits,” he said.
Other lessons he learned from Jobs included the value of design, realizing that customers often don’t know what they need, and the concept that changing one’s mind is a sign of intelligence.
The conference was kicked off by Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Energy, who observed that the United States is “no longer number one in much of anything,” a far cry from when the U.S. “took over” the industrial revolution in the 1850s. Rising carbon dioxide levels present an opportunity for America to once again be a leading innovator, he said, “and the opportunity is to correct it.”
After identifying the various ways in which the world uses energy, Surace said there a number of things American businesses can now reinvent. “Whether it’s motors or pumps or washing machines or lighting or the way we operate buildings or all the supply side dynamics, we get to reinvent today, and this, in fact, is what America has always done best,” he said.
Karl Mehta, founder and CEO of PlaySpan, a micropayment company acquired by Visa in March, talked about what he called the “building blocks of entrepreneurship,” covering key principles that helped him in his business ventures. “Wealth creation is not just about money,” he said, but also about giving back to the people who enabled them to become entrepreneurs in the first place.
Mehta is currently a board member of Simpa Networks, which seeks to make energy available to people in poor and remote areas by allowing them to purchase credits for clean energy with an affordable “pay-as-you-go” model.
When founding a company, Mehta said, one of the most important steps is “to hire people who are smarter than you.” Forming an effective team means being able to find people who are strong in areas where others are not. “Seldom you’ll find individuals who are well-rounded, but generally only teams are well-rounded,” he said.
Following Mehta was Sramana Mitra, who has built three companies since 1994, two of which she has successfully sold. Instead of a presentation, she opted to “have a conversation” with the audience, recapping her journey as an entrepreneur and talking about some of the opportunities that await future generations. “By 2020, there are going to be five billion people on the Internet … So the potential for value creation, the potential for entrepreneurship, the potential for wealth creation ahead of your generation is immense,” she said.
She also talked about her “1 Million by 1 Million” initiative, which aims to help one million entrepreneurs reach $1 million in revenue by 2020, which would create a worldwide GDP of $1 trillion and create 10 million jobs. “We have entrepreneurs from all over the world, at all different stages of their lives and careers doing one million by one million right now,” she said. Those who wish to take part in the initiative can gain access to lectures, case studies and coaching via the website http://1m1m.sramanamitra.com
During the question and answer session, Mitra said that one way to help solve problems stemming from the current economic crisis is to “empower a lot more entrepreneurs … with the skills and knowledge of how to be successful entrepreneurs.”
Another dynamic speaker was Rahim Fazal, who sold his first company during his senior year of high school. He was spurred into entrepreneurship, funnily enough, after being fired from McDonald’s for working “too slow.” “I might be the only entrepreneur who’s ever been fired from McDonald’s,” he joked. He went on to start an online business with his friend, which resulted in him cutting several classes and sneaking out for far too many supposed bathroom breaks.
The pair made local headlines after selling the business for more than $1 million. Feeling confident, he stridently ignored his parents’ advice to go to college and started another business. “I thought I was on the top of the world,” he said. “That business ended up falling flat on its face, and lost almost all of this money that I made.” He then decided to listen to his parents and acquired an MBA.
Fazal’s current business is Involver, a social marketing company that helps companies leverage social networks to reach customers. Involver’s clients include Nike, Facebook and the National Football League.
He recommended that entrepreneurs build a group of people around them who can answer questions and solve problems for them that are outside their expertise, such as lawyers and accountants. Another point close to Fazal’s heart was “getting a life.” “If you’re not having a good time, if you’re not out there doing the things that regular kids do, then you’re going to completely regret it,” he said. “Make sure you’re actually doing stuff that’s fun, and that matters.”
Check out @TEDxHarker and tedx.harker.org for videos and photos of the event!
This article originally appeared in the winter 2011 Harker Quarterly.
The atmosphere at Harker’s Homecoming was jubilant in defiance of intermittent rain on Nov. 11, as both the JV and varsity Eagles met Cupertino High School at Davis Field. Both contests were thrillers, each decided by a single-score deficit, with JV losing 18-15 and varsity winning 35-28.
Aside from the games, the many attendees had plenty to keep them occupied. Prior to the varsity game, the Harker Jazz Band warmed up the crowd from the stands and the lower school’s junior cheer squad performed, to the delight of the audience. The Eaglets’ fly-by, a Harker Homecoming tradition, saw lower school students donning their trademark eagle costumes to perform a spirited and well-received dance routine. In a continuation of the spirit rally earlier in the day, students in grades 9 and 10 met to compete for third place in the tug of war contest, with the sophomores declared the winner.
Another special pre-game event was the singing of Harker’s school song as well as “The Star-Spangled Banner” by students representing vocal groups from all three Harker campuses.
In the stands and in areas around Davis Field, the atmosphere remained festive as people from virtually every corner of the Harker community came together. Lower and middle school students met and made new friends with upper school students. Returning alumni reunited and caught up with their former teachers and reminisced about their days as Harker students. “This brings back a lot of memories of last year,” said Chris McCallaCreary ’11. “I just hope these guys cherish it while they still have it.”
The upper school parking lot was active for the duration of the event, with student organizations setting up tables to sell food and souvenirs. John and Christine Davis, parents of Cole Davis ’11, brought their RV to the special alumni section, which was busy with alumni and parents chatting and enjoying the many food options available. The Eagle Buddies also had their own section, where students in that program, as well as their parents, met and socialized. “It’s just a great way for the K-12 community to get together and support the school,” said Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
Following an exciting first half which left the varsity teams of Harker and Cupertino tied at 14 points, the crowd was treated to performances by the upper school cheerleaders and varsity dancers and also watched the tug of war contest between grades 11 and 12, who vied for first place. The seniors won the contest, continuing grade 12’s dominance in tug of war.
Capping off the halftime festivities was the appearance of the Homecoming court, each couple riding in golf carts driven by their class advisors. Nikoloff went out on to the field to thank the crowd for the great attendance and enthusiasm, before bestowing the title of Homecoming queen on Michelle Lo, grade 12, and naming Revanth Kosaraju, grade 12, this year’s Homecoming king.
The Eagles football players, thoroughly pumped to play two more quarters, burst through a large paper sign to signify the start of the second half. For the rest of the evening, onlookers watched as the Eagles soared to a hard-fought and well-deserved win.
On the following Monday, Greg Lawson, assistant head of school for student affairs, extended his thanks to all who helped make Homecoming “a rousing success. From the teams on the field, to the performers, to those working in the background on logistics; from food service, to the advancement staff, to the amazing facilities team; from the adults who volunteered or were assigned to work, to the athletic department; and finally, to those who simply attended and contributed to the wonderful spirit that could not be dampened by the rain – you have my thanks and appreciation for your contributions.”
Check out our Homecoming video posted on YouTube — search on “Harker Homecoming 2011”!
This article originally appeared in the winter 2011 Harker Quarterly.
This October, a unique combination of events conspired to give performing arts students a at a hitherto unexplored area of their craft: the Broadway casting call.
It started when Laura Lang-Ree, K-12 performing arts department chair, was contacted by Lisa Schwebke ’04 about hosting a talent search she was associated with. Casting for a Broadway revival of “Annie” is underway and the West Coast casting call for the lead role and her orphan buddies needed a place to audition hopefuls.
Schwebke, a musical theater graduate of the Harker Conservatory certificate program, had interned and apprenticed at casting agency Telsey + Co., which was holding the casting call, and she now works as a talent agent with the Gersh Agency, who would love to place some of their talent in the show. Lang-Ree and the Telsey representative worked out the details and the deal was done.
The payoff was that Harker Conservatory certificate candidates and other performing arts students had an intense weekend in late October, attending a college casting workshop Friday afternoon, a workshop on casting in general that evening, and putting the new information to use at the casting call held at Blackford on Sunday.
Friday Afternoon
Schwebke was up to bat first. She hosted the Friday afternoon discussion in Nichols Hall with students in Cantilena, an upper school choral group, and the Advanced Scene Study, Choreography and Study of Dance classes.
Schwebke, perched on the edge of the stage, spoke about the satisfaction in her non-acting job and how she actually likes the casting side better than performing. A Manhattan resident who attended New York University’s Steinhardt School, she noted the training she received while getting her Conservatory certificate has helped her virtually every day of her career. “The discipline and foundation in the arts I learned [at Harker] comes into play every single day of my life,” she said. “I don’t think I would have gotten that training anywhere else.”
Her best advice for current Conservatory candidates is to “be open to all the possibilities. I really didn’t understand that there were options other than to be an actor, and I’m having so much more fun doing what I am doing now that I ever did when I was acting. I loved [acting], but to help other actors and to use different parts of my brain that I maybe wasn’t using on that track is such a treat.”
Friday Evening
That same evening, Schwebke and Telsey casting director Rachel Hoffman teamed up for a Conservatory-sponsored workshop, “How Broadway Casting is Done.” They discussed the difference between a talent agent and a casting director, gave tips to the students about following different courses in college, and answered the students’ various questions about “the biz.” Twenty-five Conservatory candidates attended the workshop.
“It was great,” said Lang-Ree of the audition workshop. “It was a unique look at the business of casting; not only could my students gain information about casting and understand it in a whole different way, but they got to show their stuff as well. I had a couple of students prepare their work to show it to Rachel for feedback. That was very informative not only for the students who were brave enough to do that but for the students watching. You learn so much by observation in the arts,” she said.
Sunday
Then, Sunday, 30 Conservatory candidates in two shifts helped manage the flow of tiny hopefuls to and from the audition rooms, as Hoffman and two of her New York colleagues finished up a yearlong search for the next cast of “Annie,” being revived on Broadway next year.
Gathering in the Blackford campus’ outdoor eating area, the morning shift of 15 interns was instructed on how to help those auditioning to fill out the proper releases, where the prospective Annies and orphans would go first, and where to take them when they moved to the second round or were through for the day.
Those trying out for parts began arriving at 8:30 a.m., settled at picnic tables and passed the time until called.
“The amphitheater is the holding room,” said Alice Tsui, grade 11 and a theater certificate candidate. Once called in, hopefuls “go in one by one and sing to them. It is very exciting,” she added.
Interns first led those auditioning in groups of eight to the initial try-out room, helping build energy and confidence by having them skip or weave between the poles along the walkway. While waiting outside the auditioning rooms, interns read parts to cue those auditioning, high-fived those exiting and gave advice on speaking with emphasis.
“I thought it would be a really good experience,” said Tsui, “especially because it was a real Broadway audition. I thought it would be a great chance to see what goes on beyond the walls of high school and it has been fascinating.”
“Auditions went great,” said Hoffman. “Having the casting call at Harker has been a win- win all around. Harker has been a beautiful facility. The interns have been fantastic. I think they’ve had fun and they have been great.
“I love that high school kids are the interns because little girls that age always look up to older girls, so they have been fantastic about being encouraging; a big part of this is to encourage self-esteem in these girls. The interns have been fantastic at that throughout the day!” said Hoffman.
Lang-Ree was on cloud nine with all the outside expertise flowing to Conservatory candidates. “It has been an incredible opportunity to have that kind of one-on-one contact with live theater on Broadway,” she said. “It has allowed students to see the business from a very personal point of view.”
Between the Friday afternoon session, the Friday evening session and Sunday’s casting call effort, “ interns have had an opportunity to see the business from multiple sides, and that is something that is really important to the Conservatory teachers,” Lang-Ree said.
“While we all understand that passion and joy of performing and we all still perform ourselves, there is something about knowing that there is more to being in the arts than being the one shining star on Broadway – that there is this whole world open to them to remain in the arts their entire lives in directing, casting, stage management or even being that star on Broadway.
“This whole process was so successful from our end, and hopefully from Telsey’s. We all got along so well they may return in February for a workshop and we hope to piggy back on that. This is a home run for us and a home run for them, so we would do it again in a heartbeat,” concluded Lang-Ree.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2011 Harker Quarterly.
In early November, Greg Kastelman ’05 returned to The Harker School to run a workshop for instrumentalists and vocalists interested in pursuing the arts in college.
Kastelman is a public relations manager and booking agent with iCadenza, a company that works with young professionals, aiming to give them a strong start and skill set in creative fields.
Kastelman contacted Laura Lang-Ree, chair of the K-12 performing arts department, about coming to speak with the students.
Twenty-five students attended the workshop, and Kastelman emphasized throughout the workshop, “You create your own opportunities. Your career is what you create.” This goes for everything from finding a job to self-promotion.
Govinda Dasu, grade 12, said, “You can create your own job in the performing arts.”
Kastelman talked to students about the differences between conservatories and regular universities with performing arts programs. Susan Nace, a performing arts teacher at the upper school, says he took care also to say, “You don’t have to major in performing arts to be involved in performing arts in college.”
This point particularly resonated with Sean Knudsen, grade 10, who said that learning there are lots of options in the performing arts in college, even if you aren’t majoring or minoring in them, was “the most important thing I learned.”
From there, Kastelman branched into being involved in the performing arts without necessarily being a performer.
According to Nace, the students agreed that an interactive discussion about competition and collaboration was the highlight of the event, with Kastelman arguing that, while “competition is good for continued growth, collaboration is important, too.”
At the end of event, Lang-Ree said, “I hope that it gave our students a different way about thinking about their future lives in the arts, perhaps a new direction or a renewed commitment. The workshop got them to focus on their strengths and ambitions, and on ways of looking for a college that best suits those.”
Reflecting on the workshop, Payal Modi, grade 11, said, “I gained a lot of insight into my main question: ‘What really happens when people go off to college to pursue performing arts as a career?’”
The following is excerpted from the story “New Features Around Campus,” which appears in the Aug. 26 edition of The Winged Post.
The science department has sponsored installation of an aquarium that features many species of tropical fish, coral and other invertebrates, and live rock from Fiji taken from an actual coral reef.
Science department chair and biology teacher Anita Chetty wanted to invite students to the atrium, rather than just have them pass through to class.
“I wanted to enhance the atrium and give it life,” Chetty said.
Funding for the installation came from the prize money won by last year’s seven Intel semifinalists.
The project teams for the Harker Influenza Project were announced at a special school meeting in November. The teams, each led by a grade 11 student, will undertake a project related to the spread of viral disease around campus.
The first project, led by Michael Cheng, will be to develop a smartphone application that will help collect data relevant to the project. The nature of the app is yet to be determined, as the students involved are being given “quite a bit of freedom to create an app that they think would enhance the project,” said Anita Chetty, science department chair. “They may come up with an app that we’re not even thinking about right now that will increase the amount of data that is collected for this project.”
Working with Cheng on the research team will be students Lynda Tang, grade 11, Vikram Sundar, grade 10, and grade 9 students Rishabh Jain and Andrew Jin. Somnath Banerjee, parent of Nila Banerjee, grade 10, will be assisting the team as a Harker mentor for this project.
The next project, led by Suchita Nety, will be to study how environmental factors on campus can assist in the spread of microbes. Because of the scope of this effort, it has been split into two parts, each with a different team and lead investigator. Ilsa Zhang will lead the team responsible for measuring the level of carbon dioxide in various rooms. Rooms with little change in CO2 levels over a 24-hour period may experience poor air circulation, making them potential breeding grounds for viruses. Shivani Gillon, Jennifer Dai and Zahreen Choudhury, all grade 10, will make up the project’s research team.
Another team, led by Andrew Luo, will examine surfaces for their potential to harbor disease-causing pathogens. Luo will work with researchers Leslie Tzeng and Trisha Jani, both grade 10. “The two [projects] together are going to give us lots of data about areas in the school where students may get sick,” Chetty said.
In order to gauge similarities and discrepancies in subjective and objective data, Indulakshmi Seeni will lead a team that will conduct surveys and measure the data against that collected by “motes” worn by volunteers taking part in the project. Students will be surveyed about things such as how many people they came in contact with, as well as when and where the contact occurred. Because the information gathered from these surveys is reliant upon the memories of those surveyed, the data will be compared with data collected by motes, which are worn by volunteers and electronically track their interactions throughout the day. Working with Seeni on this project will be Maddie Dawson and Molly Wolfe, grade 11, Divyahans Gupta, grade 10, and Anokhi Saklecha, grade 9.
Finally, Victoria Lin will lead a team of students responsible for gathering volunteers who, should they register a temperature of 100 or higher, will report to nurse Debra Nott, who will take a nasal and throat swab, which will in turn be sent to Dr. Elodie Ghedin at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine. Ghedin, a MacArthur Fellow and leading virologist, will sequence the genome of the viruses, which can be used to find out which viruses exist on campus. Student researchers on this project will be grade 10 students Mabel Luo, Efrey Noten and Sandra Yin, and Vasudha Rengarajan, grade 9.
Dr. Marcel Salathe, who is conducting the study, visited Harker in early December with his colleague, Dr. Vicki Barclay. During their visit, they met and spoke with each team to give them advice on how to conduct their research and to prime them on the purpose of the project. Upper school biology teacher Kate Schafer will act as a liaison between the students and Salathe and Barclay. Schafer also worked closely with Salathe during the original study he conducted at Harker during the 2009-10 school year.
With the teams selected, the search will begin for volunteers once school resumes in early January. Chetty plans to hold a kickoff event that will include a screening of the film “Contagion.”
Dec. 16, 2011: The Harker upper school orchestra has been rigorously preparing for their fast-approaching trip to London. See the slideshow above for photos of the students and music teacher Chris Florio in practice!
The coming New Year festivities will be a very special time for the Harker Orchestra, who will perform in London during the city’s New Year celebrations. Lady Catherine Longworth, former Mayor of Westminster, and Bob Bone, executive director of London’s New Years Day parade, visited Harker’s upper school campus in October of last year to personally invite the orchestra to perform. The orchestra will will fly to London the day after Christmas along with director Chris Florio, upper school music teacher, and spend the next few days touring the city, visiting such landmarks as the Tower of London, Windsor Castle and Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace and home of William Shakespeare.
Florio will direct the orchestra’s performances at London’s Cadogan Hall on Dec. 29 and Dec. 31 as part of the “Music for London” concert series. Their performances will be among the several Festival Concerts that make up the first events of London’s 2012 Cultural Olympiad. On New Year’s Day, the orchestra will participate in the London New Year’s Day Parade, carrying the flags of the countries competing in the 2012 summer Olympic Games, for which London is the host city. The parade also marks the beginning of both Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee and London’s Olympic year.
Live streams of the orchestra’s performances will be available at the Cadogan Hall website. Viewers will be able to watch on Dec. 29th at 11:30 a.m., pacific standard time, and on Jan. 1 at 9 a.m., pacific standard time.
The London New Year’s Day Parade will also be live streamed at the parade’s official website. It will start at 12 a.m. on Jan. 1.
On Dec. 13, Harker students and InvenTeam members Prag Batra, Arihant Jain, Sachin Jain and Jay Reddy, all grade 12, visited San Jose City Hall, where they and the other members of the team were recognized for their achievement in this year’s InvenTeam initiative by being awarded a commendation from the city. The team’s project is a special generator that can harness solar power without the need for pricey solar panels. In October, the team was awarded a grant of $9,110 to see their project to completion. Impressed with the students’ accomplishment, City Councilman Pete Constant invited them and advisor Anthony Silk, upper school math teacher, to be honored at a city the Dec. 13 council meeting, where the students and Silk met Constant and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed.
In early November, students Patrick Lin and Ashwath Thirumalai, both grade 9, traveled to Beijing, China, to participate in the World Mathematics Team Championship (WMTC) as members of the U.S. team, which took third place in the middle division. Both students also won individual silver medals for their outstanding performances. Lin and Thirumalai competed in the middle school division due to the competition’s age requirements. Lin was invited to the WMTC by the Berkeley Math Circle, a program for Bay Area high school and middle school students that helps foster youth interest in mathematics and prepares them for contests such as the WMTC.