“Singing is Our Birthright” was the title Susan Nace, upper school music teacher, gave to one of the final vocal concerts of the year, featuring three upper school groups at the Nichols Hall auditorium on April 28: Camerata, Cantilena and Guys’ Gig.
Camerata, the mixed choral ensemble, started off with a diverse set of madrigals and jazz tunes. Following the mournful harmonies of John Wilbye’s “Adieu, Sweet Amaryllis,” the mood quickly lightened as the students gathered ‘round the piano (played by Nace) to sing Billy Strayhorn’s “Something to Live For,” followed by a vocal arrangement of Scott Joplin’s famous “Maple Leaf Rag,” during which the students leaped off stage and brought the music directly to the audience by strolling through the aisles as they sang.
Several soloists were featured throughout the show between group performances singing a wide variety of songs from many cultures, including show tunes such as “Somewhere” from “West Side Story,” sung by Cristina Jerney, grade 10, Romantic era pieces such as Sebastian Herscher, grade 11, performing Franz Schubert’s “Der Neugierige” and even one song sung entirely in Chinese by sophomore Rebecca Liu.
Guys’ Gig, as always, were a crowd favorite thanks to their upbeat mood and energetic sense of humor. One of their songs, which integrated a storyline about a socially insecure Harker freshman, combined themes from several famous John Williams scores (including “Star Wars,” “Jurassic Park” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”) into a hilarious tribute to “Star Wars” fandom.
Cantilena performed a series of varied and experimental songs, starting off with “O Mama Bakudala,” a traditional tune sung by the women of the South African Xhosa tribe, whose words translate to, “The mothers from way back used to pray.” The continued with classics such as Thomas Morley’s “Sing We and Chant It” and Johannes Brahms’ version of “Ave Maria.” After breaking to make room for solo performances, Cantilena returned to the stage to sing Gwyneth Walker’s “To Sing is to Fly” and the Robert Lowry-penned hymn “How Can I Keep From Singing?” during which they were joined by Daniel Cho, grade 12, who sang “Amazing Grace” with a section of the group.
With the show officially finished, Nace had some special gifts for the departing seniors of Cantilena, who each received a medallion to commemorate her dedication to the group. She also presented Alex Najibi, grade 11, with a new pitch pipe to assist him as he enters the next school year as the new leader of Guys’ Gig.
The students themselves also had a surprise tribute of their own for Nace, gifting her with flowers and assembling on the stage to sing Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”
Despite not doing “anything special to prepare,” said upper school physics teacher Eric Nelson, Harker nonetheless managed to perform impressively in the 2011 Physics Bowl, organized by the American Association of Physics Teachers.
Ashvin Swaminathan, grade 10, was one of the top 10 scorers in his region for the division 2 (advanced) category with a score of 31, nearly 15 points higher than the average score of 16.4. Harker was also one of the highest-scoring schools in its region in the division 2 category, with 130 points.
More than 4,000 students from more than 200 schools in the United States and Canada participated in this year’s competition, which also had participants from China, Japan and Korea.
The grade 6-8 tennis team, although still competing in playoffs, went a combined 10-4 this season in two separate leagues. The team went 5-2 in the WBAL and took third place in the final tournament. The team went 5-2 in the MTP and are currently in the quarterfinals of the final tournament. The team is led by Sophia Luo and Vikram Vasan, grade 7, and Srivinay Irrinki, grade 8.
The grade 6-8 water polo team finished off the season in fine fashion this past weekend with convincing victories over Terman 22-4 and Castilleja 20-0. They finished the season with a combined record of 6-3. The team was led by Billy Bloomquist, Delaney Martin, Ryan Palmer and Darby Millard, all grade 8; Shivali Minocha, grade 7; and Harry Xu and Pooja Kini, grade 6.
The grade 5 girls JVB1 girls volleyball team won the WBAL title with a record of 6-0! Key players were Satchi Thockchom, Aria Coalson and Sameep Mangat. Key players for the JVB2 team were Julia Amick and Jennifer Hayashi, grade 4 and Sanjana Avula, grade 5.
The grade 6 girls JVA girls volleyball team were tri-champions of the WBAL with a record of 6-1! Key players were Lindsey Trinh, Rachel Cheng and Joelle Anderson. Key players for the JVB6 team, who finished in a three-way tie for second in the WBAL, were Priyanka Chilukuri, Priyanka Taneja and Sarah Tien.
The grade 7-8 girls were combined into three teams. The varsity A team went 9-0 to take first place in the WBAL! The team was led by Shannon Richardson, Jacqueline Chen and Doreene Kang, all grade 7. The varsity B team went 8-1 to take second place in the WBAL. The team was led by Leeza Kuo, Hannah Bollar and Allison Kiang, all grade 8. The varsity B2 team went 7-2 for a two-way tie for second place in the WBAL. The team was led by Kelly Wang, Neha Sunil and Archana Podury, all grade 8.
The grade 6-8 boys volleyball teams went a combined 15-0 this season! The varsity A team was led by Matt Ho, Justin Lee and Richard Gu, all grade 8. The varsity B team was led by Austin Tuan, Alex Youn and Andrew Gu, all grade 6. The junior varsity A team was led by Justin Xie, Albert Xu and Shekar Ramaswamy, all grade 6.
The grade 5-8 baseball program continues to develop and there were some exciting games with Crystal Springs and Sacred Heart, and of course, the close game between the Harker grade 5 and 6 teams where the fifth graders took home the victory this year. The lower school team was led by Michael Sikand, grade 7 and Tanay Kamat and Will Holaday, both grade 5. The middle school team was led by Logan Drazovich, grade 7 and Karan Walia and Alex Lam, both grade 6.
Nearly 30 middle school students attended the State Latin Convention at Miramonte High School in Orinda in early April. The group enjoyed a variety of activities ranging from workshops (the Roman soldier re-enactors were a particular favorite) to a banquet, and, naturally, participated in the competition, with many winning prizes. Harker placed second overall in the middle school category.
Awards at the MS1 level (all grade 6): Sean Costello, second in Latin sight reading; Aditya Dhar, first in derivatives, first in mythology, first in Latin oratory; Alexander Lam, second in derivatives; Eric Pei, honorable mention in grammar; Venkat Sankar, first in dramatic interpretation (boy); Amrita Singh, first in dramatic interpretation (girl), third in grammar, third in Latin sight reading; Jackson Su, honorable mention in mythology; Arjun Subramaniam, first in tennis, second in dramatic interpretation (boy); Karthik Sundaram, first in strings; Austin Tuan, second in grammar. In addition, Dhar won the individual academic sweepstakes in MS1.
Awards at the MS2 level (all grade 7, unless otherwise indicated): Billy Bloomquist , grade 8, second in Latin sight reading, third in reading comprehension; Rishabh Chandra, first in grammar, third in reading comprehension; Richard Gu, grade 8, second in reading comprehension, third in mythology; Sadhika Malladi, first in reading comprehension; Kaushik Sankar, third in reading comprehension; Elisabeth Siegel, first in pentathlon, first in essay; Vivek Sriram, grade 8, first in derivatives, first in reading comprehension, first in Latin sight reading; Allison Wang, second in mythology, second in pentathlon, third in Latin sight reading. The certamen (quiz bowl) team of Chandra, Sankar, Siegel and Wang placed first in the state.
Awards at the MS3 level (all grade 8): Anni Ankola, third in costume (he dressed as Charon), honorable mention in vocabulary; Zabin Bashar, first in impromptu art, honorable mention in mythology, honorable mention in reading comprehension; Aadyot Bhatnagar, first in reading comprehension, first in vocabulary, second in strings; Maya Nandakumar, first in mythology, first in dramatic interpretation (girl), second in vocal music; Bhatnagar and Nandakumar tied for first in the individual academic sweepstakes at the MS3 level. Also, the certamen team of Bashar, Bhatnagar, Nandakumar and Rasika Raghavan, grade 8, (in preliminary rounds) placed first.
Other participants were Chris Finsterbusch, Brendan Tobin, Albert Xu, all grade 6, and Ryan Fernandes and John Nicolas Jerney, both grade 7. In conjunction with the upper school, the delegation was awarded first place for spirit. The T-shirt designed by Kevin Ke, grade 7, placed first, as did the banner created by Shannon Hong and Natalie Simonian, both grade 7, and Sophia Shatas and Allison Kiang, both grade 8. The chariot team came in second in their race. The scrapbook created by Nandakumar placed third.
Special to Harker News Online from Susan Nace, Cantilena’s director. Listen to recordings of the performance by clicking on the links at the bottom of the article.
Cantilena earned their third unanimous superior (highest honors) at the California Music Educators Association regional choral festival held at Saratoga High School. Judges complimented the ensemble on their warm and inviting tone, excellent vocal resonance, exceptional blend, consistent intonation and rich quality (see the linked recordings of the songs at the end of this article). Adjudicator Catherine Smith, delighted to hear a women’s ensemble at the festival, commented on the strength of Cantilena’s sound with “strong women who sing.” In the sight singing portion, Travis Rogers, another adjudicator, praised Cantilena for their discipline and careful listening to each other. “You should be bursting with pride! What a wonderful representation you made for your school today, beautiful in every way: discipline, posture, alertness, attentiveness, taking responsibility for yourself for your own parts.”
Listen! Sing We and Chant it composed by Thomas Morley and arranged by Katherine Davis, sung by Cantilena
Listen! Ave Maria composed by Johannes Brahms, sung by Cantilena
The lower school’s Bucknall Choir and instrumentalists have had a busy month. The entire group held its annual concert on May 10 and the Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble attended the Heritage Festival at Foothill College just a few days later, with the artists garnering kudos both places.
At the annual Bucknall Instrumental and Choir Concert , performances were by the Lower School Choir and all the instrumental students from Orchestra, Jazz Ensemble, String Ensemble, Prep String Ensemble, Wind Ensemble and seven first-year group classes, and there were a few nice surprises.
Joe Connolly, dean of students K-5, was master of ceremonies while Tomas Thompson of the P.E. staff was the guest conductor for the Harker school song, which was performed by the complete ensemble at the opening of the program. Tiffany Wong, grade 4, on harp, accompanied the orchestra on “O Mio Babbino Caro,” and Kathleen Ferretti took a break from her day job as the lower school’s math department chair grades 2-3 to play Taiko drums on the grand finale of “I Want Candy.”
Two special pieces were performed that were composed by grade 2 students. “Both students studied with me in learning composition, orchestration and arranging,” said Louis Hoffman, director of instrumental studies K-Grade5. “Paul Kratter wrote for orchestra. His piece is ‘Rondo in A Minor.’ Aditya Andrade wrote a piece for the Jazz Ensemble called ‘Fun with Blues,’” said Hoffman. Kratter s conducted the orchestra for his piece and Andrade the Jazz Ensemble for his.
The boys’ compositions grew from a new program Hoffman started called Young Composers Series. “Any student can submit a composition for performance to be played by any of our ensembles (orchestra, jazz ensemble, string ensemble, choir, etc.,” said Hoffman. “The student is taken through all the steps from composing, orchestration and arranging to preparing a score and parts to performance and conducting.”
At the Heritage Festival, the Orchestra took a gold award and the Jazz Ensemble placed a close second with a silver award. “Only two schools received the gold,” said Hoffman. “Not too shabby. Both groups wowed the adjudicators, who gave high praise to the students for their outstanding performance level and composure.”
Both the young composers whose pieces were performed at the school concert were specially honored: Kratter and Andrade each got a standing ovation and were awarded Maestro trophies at the festival. “This is a high honor and the first time ever in the over 30-year history of the festival that two young composers were honored,” said Hoffman. “Please join me in congratulating our young budding musicians in their wonderful and well-deserved accomplishment.”
The middle school’s spring musical, Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” entranced young and old with simple but evocative sets, colorful and active crowd scenes and superlative performances by leading actors.
There were three showings, plus shows for students during school time, and two casts, so special kudos go to Monica Colletti and Roxann Hagemeyer, the director and musical director, for the stellar performance of both groups!
Dinner was available before each of the evening shows and the Saturday matinee show was a special family event where children dressed as a prince or princess and met cast members in costume.
The story was introduced by players speaking to the audience. Then, the curtain opened to the vivid, active panorama of the village square, where we are introduced to Belle, the beauty, played by Apoorva Rangan and Rasika Raghavan, both grade 8, a quirky young woman and the only one in the village with the perspicacity –and motivation– to tame the Beast/Prince, played by Jeton Gutierrez-Bujari and Glenn Reddy, both grade 8. About 50 middle schoolers were in the cast, with more working as stage hands and in other technical positions.
Highlights included very fast set changes with the curtain open, displaying the clever arrangement that kept the continuity of the play intact. The village backdrop was simple, leaving center stage as the action focus; the interior of the Beast’s castle had simple risers that played into the plot, but again, kept the action center stage.
Characters were fun! The hunter, Gaston, played by Ryan Pachauri, grade 8, was a swaggering braggart, and his side kick Lefou, played by Sid Krishnamurthi and Agata Sorotokin, both grade 8, was by turns insouciant and ingratiating. Other characters brought the drama alive, including Lumiere, played by Ishanya Anthapur and Maya Nandakumar, both grade 8, whose inspired delivery and lively movement captivated the audience.
Costuming was thorough and fun, with Belle in a lovely dress, the prince in velvet and a shaggy mask, and market folk in peasant dress.
Crowd scenes were especially energizing, with opposing rows of players singing and moving back and forth across the stage to create symmetrical movement, while the chaotic raid by the villagers delighted young audience members with its frenzied search for the Beast/Prince.
“I am constantly amazed at the depth of talent that exists within this community amongst students, faculty and staff,” said Cindy Ellis, middle school head. “A special thank you to Monica Colletti and Roxann Hagemeyer, our phenomenal directors, and to Paul Vallerga and Brian Larsen, our magical tech and set managers. I know there are untold hours that go in to such a lavish production!”
In early May a representative of the Shriners Hospitals for Children – Sacramento came to Harker’s middle school to accept a $1,200 check from the Peace2Peace club. The club’s eighth graders raised the money in their annual garage sale to help the Shriners. Glenn Reddy has been spearheading these efforts over the last three years and this year was assisted by Jeton Gutierrez-Bujari, Jeremy Binkley and Alex Thomas, backed up by Sophia Shatas, Hannah Baz and Christina Andrus.
The Shriners Hospitals for Children is a nonprofit network of 22 hospitals that gives aid to children with orthopedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries, cleft lips and palates. The specific hospital that Peace2Peace is supporting is located in Sacramento.
Advised by Steven Hewitt, the group solicited items to sell at their sale, asking for everything from toaster ovens to paintings on velvet in their creative announcement, stating, “one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure” as their philosophy. They requested the donations be placed in special red bins spotted around the Blackford campus. In mid-April, aiming for a dry weekend, they collected all the goods, set up shop and ran the sale from Reddy’s home.
“Over the past few years, we have raised money for places in Uganda, Costa Rica and India,” Reddy said. “We sat down and realized this year that people need help locally and not just in other countries. Since I have been a patient at Shriners myself, I recommended the Shriners hospital as a group to donate to.”
In early April, The Harker Conservatory premiered the American leg of its gritty, aggressive production of Stephen Schwartz’ “Pippin” for the upper school’s 2011 spring musical. Directed by Laura Lang-Ree, performing arts department chair K-12, the troupe will travel to Scotland in August to perform the show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest international performing arts festival in the world.
A meditation on the struggle to lead a meaning-driven life, “Pippin” smashes together a coming-of-age tale, wherein Pippin must swim though an endless ocean of hopeful-yet-unsatisfying choices, with a mid-life awakening, where, awash in apathy and disappointment, a despairing, confounded Pippin must reconcile his lost promise with a domestic lifestyle he had condemned. Finally, with an end-of-life letting-go, Pippin finds his choices made and his time running thin.
Just as the real-life Pepin, the son of Charlemagne and prospective heir to the Holy Roman Emperor, grew up with a duality and uncertainty regarding his coming adulthood, torn between the potential to inherit a vast religious legacy and the danger that his deformities and disabilities might rob him of a bright future, so too our Pippin is caught when his ambition, immeasurable talents and desire to live out an extraordinary life struggle to find an outlet.
And, just as the historical Pepin would be thrust into a journey that would see him conspire to assassinate his famous father, fail and be pardoned, and live out the rest of his life as a monk, so too our Pippin embarks on a long and epic journey through warfare, romance, politics, family, scholarship and solitude in search of meaning, fulfillment and an opportunity to flourish.
As a young man, praised for his mounting and lofty intentions, Pippin joins his father and brother in a holy war in search of esteem, glory and thrills. However, he finds himself alienated from his military peers and personally unsuited to the horrors of battle. After consulting with elders, Pippin conspires to assassinate his father and slides into a political future casting himself as a problem solver who can float above traditional problems. Alas, unequal rights, taxation and military preparedness are more difficult problems to solve than he had imagined. Pippin’s promise turns to disappointment and he abandons a civic life to continue his personal search for fulfillment.
The text of Pippin was chosen by Lang-Ree for its appeal at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where the production can speak to an international community of adventurous and bold globetrotters searching for their place in the world and “resonate with our young American and European audiences who, like Pippin, are trying to find their way in these times of global economic depression and civic revolution,” she said.
The production showcases the depth of Conservatory members with a compelling and edgy choice that Lang-Ree expects will draw in a sophisticated audience at the festival, an influential meeting place and launching pad for theatrical trends.
Lang-Ree noted the production connects with its audience through humor; indeed, “Pippin” is ultimately a lively, comic affair.
During the campaign, Pippin’s alienation from fellow soldiers is illustrated when he diverges from his crew’s war song in an enthusiastic, lonely, bursting, incongruous solo. In the stylized battle, loose limbs fly from every direction and after the fray, in a moment of poignant reflection, Pippin consults with the severed, though pleasant-mannered, head of one of the battle’s casualties.
Yet hilarity often turns to heartfelt longing. After Pippin gives up on his long quest, he finds himself emotionally shipwrecked and personally abandoned – dirty, lonely, and apathetic – before he is discovered by a kindly young widow – Catherine – a single mother whose son has an endearing pet duck nearing the end of its life. While the prop duck wins the audience’s hearts and smiles, a romance blossoms between Pippin and Catherine.
Comic, but crushing, Pippin leaves Catherine, unwilling to content himself with a domestic life: “Life is more than ducks that die,” he says. Catherine, who was introduced telling of her despair after her husband’s death and of how she picked herself up, is left repeating the refrain: “On the sixth day, I got up. There were things to be done,” adding a tearful lament: “He was the best to come along in a long, long while.”
Pippin’s journey is framed by a theatrical troupe of players who manifest for him the various vignettes he lives out. These sly and darkly irreverent players, directed by Lang-Ree to represent “the darkness in Pippin’s mind and the negativity that can eat away at all of us,” flesh out the environment of voices and dancers who surround the plot.
In the end, as the performance nears its conclusion, Pippin, faced with dying an unsatisfying death after never compromising the purity of his intentions, resolves to continue living, and to search for happiness and meaning in the human relationships he can revive with Catherine and her son. Yet, when the players are deprived of their fantastical and tragic finale – Pippin and Catherine, in a metatheatrical moment, seek to disable the production, shutting down the stage lights and willing the band to cease playing before permanently exiting the stage – the players find a new target to propel on a path of human existential searching: Catherine’s son Theo. Thus, with a bang of light and sound, in our performance’s closing moments, the story begins anew, and the cycle continues, with Theo as the newly appointed protagonist.
Wearing eyeshadow, dark, skinny jeans, and chains about his waist, John Ammatuna, grade 12, dazzles as the wistful, daring, sarcastic Pippin. The ensemble, performing in black leather and neon, dances amidst a hazy smoke pierced by green, purple and burnt orange beams of light, matching jagged, exact, aggressive, athletic choreography with buoyant character acting. The ensemble is led by Daniel Cho, grade 12, as the cunning Leading Player; Noel Witcosky, grade 11, as the shimmering Catherine; Adi Parige, grade 12, as Pippin’s father; Sean Martin, grade 12, as Pippin’s likeably dimwitted brother; Allike Walvekar, grade 12, as his wily grandmother; and Michelle Holt, grade 12, as his conniving stepmother.
The architecture, a whirling mix of gilded and bronzed wheels, cogs and gears, was created by Paul Vallerga of the performing arts department; lights were designed by Natti Pierce-Thomson; choreography was by Katie O’Bryon; costumes by Caela Fujii, and performing arts teacher Catherine Snider led the rock band in music she reworked to better match Lang-Ree’s steam punk vision.
In her program note, Lang-Ree framed the production as a contemplation of the “too-hyped American Dream,” where one man is “told that he can have it all if he just works hard enough.” “When you’re extraordinary, you think of extraordinary things,” Pippin tells us early on, lamenting “here I am, to seize my day – if anybody would tell me when the hell it is.”
As the production reaches its end, with our triumphant and defiant family drenched in an ethereal sidelight, and the leading player taunting Pippin, chanting that his “search for perfection was doomed from the start” – that after a life of wandering, nothing was completely fulfilling – we are left to hope that Pippin has found his extraordinary capstone after all, in the comfort of those around him, and the shared life he now embarks on. “I wanted such a little thing from life,” he said. “I wanted so much.”
Harker News Online (HNO), The Harker School’s online news publication launched in May 2009, posted its 1,000th story on April 29, 2011. Reporting on the day-to-day news and activities of this robust community of 1,700 students, HNO also includes over 300 photos and nearly 100 slide shows. Established in 1893, Harker is now the largest K-12 independent school in the state of California with three campuses – lower, middle and upper – with extensive academic, athletic and performance offerings. Due to Harker’s far-reaching programs and activities, such as global partnerships, community programs and national news, HNO was established to report news of the school to the greater community. For more information, contact news@harker.org.