Ron McCurdy, a professor of music at the University of Southern California, gave a presentation Tuesday on the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. His appearance was the first in a series of four planned for the upper school’s spring semester. McCurdy, who previously served as a professor of music and chair of the Afro-American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, is also the creator of the Langston Hughes Project, a live multimedia performance of Langston Hughes’ “Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz,” which will be performed during McCurdy’s fourth appearance in April.
The presentation began with a brief history of the arrival of the first Africans on the American continent in the 17th century, their enslavement by European settlers (at the persuasion of rich European landowners), the Emancipation Proclamation (which McCurdy said was an act of “economic and political expediency”) and the 13th Amendment, which formally abolished slavery but contained a massive loophole: that people guilty of criminal behavior could be placed back into bondage.
“So we know that with the 13th Amendment being enacted, that almost any aspect of African-American life was somehow criminalized,” McCurdy said. One of the most flagrant abuses of the loophole involved the crime of vagrancy, in which a person was unable to produce papers proving they were employed. This criminalization of Black life, McCurdy said, continues today. “It is no accident … that even though African-Americans make up less than 30 percent of the population, we represent more than 50 percent of the population in prison,” he noted.
During the migration of Black Americans from the South to the North and Midwest, “an amalgamation of doctors, lawyers, teachers, dentists, gangsters … you name it,” arrived in Harlem, McCurdy said. This also included a great number of artists and intellectuals, resulting in what has become known as the Harlem Renaissance. “The Harlem Renaissance was probably one of the first times in our country where white America began to take notice of African-American culture,” said McCurdy. Before then, Black Americans were judged only by the amount of labor they performed.
Artists from many disciplines – including music, poetry, painting and literature – created works that chronicled Black life in the 1920s. McCurdy covered several of the key figures during this period, including Hughes, whose work delved into the contradiction of the idea of America as “land of the free.”
Harlem also had its own successful baseball and basketball teams. The New York Renaissance basketball team (often shortened to Rens), was based in Harlem and would play exhibition games against the Boston Celtics, who they frequently defeated. The Rens were paid in checks, which would often bounce. The two teams befriended one another, and the Celtics later demanded that the Rens be paid in cash.
Black musicians in the 1920s, many trained at top American musical schools, had difficulty finding opportunities in America and frequently performed in Europe. These included singer Marian Anderson, who toured successfully in Europe before returning to America. After being denied the opportunity to sing at Washington D.C.’s Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, she gave a now-famous concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Singer and actor Paul Robeson also became popular for his theater performances, particularly of the song “Ol’ Man River,” which he repurposed later in his life as an anthem against oppression. In the 1940s he was blacklisted for his sympathies for the Soviet Union and stances against American imperialism and could no longer travel abroad to perform.
The Cotton Club began operation in Harlem in 1923, employing Black entertainers whose performances at the whites-only venue helped launch their careers. Due to the popularity of minstrelsy and later vaudeville in the early 20th century, African-American performers “were expected to comport themselves in a very subservient way.” McCurdy recalled a conversation he had with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who held little respect for Louis Armstrong as a boy “until he understood the history. And that way of comporting yourself was a defense mechanism. It was a survival technique,” McCurdy said. “Because if you came across as an African-American man with any degree of arrogance or too much confidence, that could get you killed.”
The growing popularity of jazz brought with it new dances such as the Lindy Hop and the Big Apple. As an art, dance began “moving away from the Victorian style of living, where everything was pristine and carefully done,” McCurdy said. “Now many of the Black dances … these were all dances that found their genesis in the Black community.” This style became popular with white youths, who were “having themselves a ball, much to the chagrin of their parents,” McCurdy remarked.
McCurdy’s next appearance will take place in late February, in which he will examine jazz performance practices and how they are similar to leadership, using examples by Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Benny Goodman.
Jazz pianist Taylor Eigsti appeared via Zoom Friday night for the third event of the 2021 Virtual Harker Concert Series. Speaking with longtime friend Dave Hart, Harker’s upper school instrumental music chair and artistic director of the Harker concert series, Eigsti got attendees caught up on his recent activities, showing off the setup he had put together for online lessons. “I spent my entire life not doing online lessons,” he said. “It was something that I was pretty staunch about.”
With in-person lessons now infeasible due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Eigsti spent considerable time preparing for online lessons, and expressed amusement at his newfound obsession with cameras and live sound. During one of the very few live gigs he played in the past year, he found himself chatting with the sound crew. “I’m picking the brains of the sound engineers,” he said. “It really is a deep dive into all of the other things since we have to do all of this stuff ourselves now.”
Discussing life as a member pf legendary trumpeter Chris Botti’s band, Eigsti stressed the importance of making time for oneself. “If you’re doing 270 gigs a year in one band, it’s hard to do anything else. You’ve got to balance it out with some white space,” he said.
As a bandleader himself, Eigsti learned a great deal from how Botti led his ensembles. “He just has a real structure to the show. It’s like a well-oiled machine,” he said, drawing a distinction between Botti and the way he had been accustomed to performing different music every night.
Eigsti’s next album, titled “Tree Falls,” is scheduled for release on May 21 through GSI Records. The first single, a cover of Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer’s “Skylark,” features former “American Idol” contestant Casey Abrams. “This is the project I’m the most proud of in my whole life,” Eigsti said. “I haven’t released an album in 11 years, so it’s wild to release an album now.”
His other major project is a collaboration with the Community School of Music and Arts called “Imagine Our Future,” in which he has been commissioned to write a piece based on ideas sent to him by Bay Area students. “When I’m composing I really like to take a lot of ideas that could really come from anywhere,” he said. “This is definitely a little bit more of a challenge than I thought it would be. It’s really interesting to see how it’s naturally coming together.”
Answering a question about compositions played by his band, Eigsti noted “it’s different every time. Sometimes we’ll do a show and everyone in the band might have some tune that’s written by them.
“I tend to like to play the music of my friends and also my own music and different songs that people know that could be covers or jazz standards,” he added.
On the process of composing, Eigsti said he believes “only 10 percent of what we write is actually good, so you might as well just keep writing.” He also encouraged exploring many sources for inspiration and experimenting with ideas. “Try things out in different keys,” he said. “Sometimes we think of ideas where their home is somewhere else.”
Yesterday, 12 Harker seniors were selected as candidates for the 2021 U.S. Presidential Scholars program. Each year the U.S. Department of Education selects Presidential Scholar candidates among students who have demonstrated excellence in academics, the arts, and career and technical education fields. Candidates may submit additional materials, including essays, transcripts and self-assessments, to advance in the program. Approximately 500 candidates will be selected as semifinalists in March. In April, 121 students will be named Presidential Scholars.
This year’s candidates are: Andrew Lu, Clair Luo, John Lynch, Arya Maheshwari, Akshay Manglik, Utkarsh Priyam, Aditya Singhvi, Srinath Somasundaram, Nicholas Yi, Alex Zhai, Elaine Zhai and Weixuan Zhang.
The competition, held by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, tasks teams with planning a client’s investment goals. Each team has an approved list of stocks they can use over a period of 10 weeks to build their portfolios.
Next, the team will create a video presentation and complete the written portion of the competition for the regional finals in March.
On Friday, a virtual middle school assembly celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At the assembly, a series of grade 7 speakers delivered calls to action on issues important to them in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day’s designation as a day of service.
The activity was directed by English teacher Rebecca Williams, who asked her students to be “voices of change” by bringing awareness to issues they felt were important.
Linda Zeng spoke on the pressure felt by students preparing for standardized tests and offered some ways students could alleviate stress. Ritik Raman and Rahul Sundaresan spoke on the danger posed to aquatic life by pollution and how people can contribute to a more sustainable world. Disha Gupta offered a passionate plea for the community to find ways to end bullying, which she said creates “a never-ending cycle of abuse.” Savitha Satish talked about the discrimination faced by sufferers of mental illness and encouraged people to educate themselves and others on mental health. Elie Ahluwalia and Myra Thakker talked about how stereotypes can lead to discrimination and explained the difference between being a passive “non-racist” and an active “anti-racist” who analyzes their own stereotyping thoughts and works for a more equal society. Finally, Sofia Shah talked about gender inequality in the workplace and how norms that keep women at home and in a narrow set of jobs must be rejected.
Following the student talks, seventh grader Tanvi Sivakumar announced the Blessing Bags service project, which will provide basic necessities such as water, food and toiletries to the homeless.
The assembly ended with Williams challenging the attendees to find issues they care about and learn how to become an agent of change, followed by attendees announcing the issues they chose in the Zoom room’s text chat.
On Wednesday, Joelle Anderson ’17 was selected in the third round (26th overall) by the Houston Dash in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) draft.
Anderson was a stellar player during her time at Harker. She was a two-time Forward of the Year in the WBAL and led the CCS in goals and points her senior year.
Continuing her amazing play in college, Anderson was a three-time All-West Conference selection and a two-time United Soccer Coaches All-West Region selection. The college soccer season was postponed until February because of COVID, so Anderson will still be able to finish her senior season.
Anderson comes from a family of athletes. Older brother Jeremiah ’15 played soccer at Westmont College and younger brother Jarrett ’19 is a standout volleyball player at Springfield College. Her parents also teach at Harker. Her mom Michelle teaches kindergarten and dad Pete is a middle school PE teacher.
Today, the Society for Science & the Public announced that seniors Shray Alag, Saloni Shah, Aditya Tadimeti and Sidra Xu were named four of the top 300 scholars in the 2021 Regeneron Science Talent Search. Nearly 1,800 applications from 611 high schools were submitted for this year’s competition. Each of the 300 scholars will be awarded a $2,000 cash prize, and their schools will receive a $2,000 prize for each scholar to fund STEM-related education. This year’s top 40 finalists will be announced Jan. 21.
Following a rigorous audition process, six Harker students were recently named members of California All-State Ensembles.
Bassoonist Chelsea Park, grade 8, was selected to play for the junior high school symphonic band and violist Keira Chang, grade 7, was chosen to perform with the junior high school symphony orchestra. From the upper school, vocalist Malar Bala, grade 11, was named to the high school vocal jazz band, junior Rylan Yang was selected to play French horn in the high school symphonic band, and juniors Austin Wang and Tina Zhong, both violinists, were selected for the high school symphony orchestra and high school string orchestra, respectively.
This week, the upper school show choir Downbeat released a special video for its annual holiday outreach tour, which typically takes place on the first Friday of December. “For the last 25 years, Downbeat has toured all over the Bay Area, bringing holiday joy to preschools, senior centers, dementia units, Grace Cathedral’s homeless lunch clients, the children’s cancer ward at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and more,” said Laura Lang-Ree, upper school performing arts chair. In addition to performing, they also bring gifts, cookies and spend time chatting with residents.
Due to safety concerns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the tour could not be held this year, but the students felt the tradition should continue in some form. “Downbeat decided it was important to continue the tradition for all of our regular outreach places and spread even more joy, as so many people are alone over the holidays due to the pandemic,” Lang-Ree said. Downbeat members spent considerable time over the fall semester creating the video, including the sound editing, arranging and narration. It will be sent to various Bay Area schools, youth centers, hospitals and care facilities. Members of the Harker community can view the video by logging in to the Harker portal and visiting the Performing Arts page.
On Sept. 25, CareerConnect held a Harker alumni panel via Zoom. Three alumni, Haley Tran ’17, Lucas Wang ’17 and Vignesh Panchanatham ’18, talked about things students should know before graduating from high school. They discussed founding and joining clubs, finding summer opportunities, their college experiences and more. In addition, they answered many questions from students.
“This event helped me learn more about the little niches in school and outside of school to do before graduating high school,” said Jessica Zhou, grade 10, commented. “Fostering a connection with teachers in the subjects you are interested in can help you down the road when doing events or projects related to it and making sure to do what you enjoy is extremely important.”
The event was a great success and helped students learn about how to get involved in the Harker community and make the most of high school!