This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Nichols Hall’s auditorium was packed on Nov. 15 for this year’s fall choral concert, which featured upper school singing groups Bel Canto, Camerata, Guys’ Gig and Cantilena. This concert focused on the work of Eastern and Central European composers, with a smattering of holiday favorites included in the spirit of the season.
Camerata, directed by Susan Nace, were the first performers of the evening with a pair of holiday songs by Arvo Pärt and Pierre Certon. Jennah Somers then directed Bel Canto, who performed traditional Russian and Macedonian folk songs, as well as a clever version of “The Nutcracker” with its familiar melodies sung to the lyrics of “Jingle Bells.”
Always crowd favorites, the allmale a cappella group Guys’ Gig took the stage and started things off with their rendition of Billy Joel’s “For the Longest Time.” Following some amusing banter in which they realized their set was not in keeping with the theme of the show, the boys launched into “Tchaikovsky and Other Russians,” an amusing meditation on the tongue-twisting nature of Russian surnames. Susan Nace returned to direct headliners Cantilena, who were accompanied by Camerata on their first song of the evening, Tchaikovsky’s “Let My Prayer Arise,” which had the two groups trading verses, adapted to match each group’s style. They followed with a stirring performance of Mykola Leontovych’s “Shchedryk,” popularly known as “Carol of the Bells,” and ended the show on a rousing note with Zoltán Kodály’s “Táncnóta” (“Dancing Song”), which fittingly had the singers stomping in rhythm.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.
The works featured in this year’s middle school fall production provided both modern and classic examples of the influence of commedia dell’arte, a style of Italian theater that rose to prominence in the mid-16th century. Notable for its heavy use of improvisation, commedia dell’arte is credited with the proliferation of what is now known as slapstick comedy and was a major influence on playwrights such as Shakespeare and Moliere, whose “A Doctor in Spite of Himself” was one of the plays brought to the Blackford Theater on Nov. 15.
In “Doctor,” adapted from its original French version by Aurand Harris, a prodigal husband named Sgnarelle (Matthew Hajjar, grade 7) is punished for his spendthrift ways by his wife, Martine, played by Sameep Mangat, grade 8. Fed up with her husband’s penchant for spending extravagantly on food and drink, Martine tells the servants of a rich family in need of a doctor that Sgnarelle is a doctor held in high regard. They in turn coerce him into serving as a doctor for the wealthy family, which results in a series of amusing and occasionally dangerous situations.
The second play, “Bamboozled!” written by Michael Brill in 1985, is a story of mischief and deception, as the opportunistic Brighella (Sophia Angus, grade 7) devises a plot that involves tricking the old and greedy Pantalone (Akhil Arun, grade 8) into thinking he has killed the young Harlequin (Ellie Lang-Ree, grade 7) and having Pantalone pay Brighella to stay quiet and get rid of the very-much-alive Harlequin’s “body.” Another plot involving an arranged marriage between Pantalone and the beautiful Columbine (Maya Kumar, grade 8) sees Brighella attempt to switch the bride to be with Harlequin, thereby allowing Columbine to run away with her lover, Leandro, and simultaneously making Brighella and Harlequin the benefactors of the dowry from Columbine’s ward. Both plays were directed by middle school performing arts teacher Mary Ellen Agnew-Place, who was crucial in bringing out wonderful performances from the students, particularly since the material was uncommon for actors their age. Harker performing arts department veteran Paul Vallerga again designed the set, and also acted as technical director and lighting designer. Carol Clever designed the vibrant costumes and props, while Brian Larsen was the play’s production manager.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Graduates of The Harker Conservatory’s certificate program have spread out across the United States to pursue the arts. 2013 alumni are dancing, singing, playing music and making theater at top universities. For some, that means indulging in their art as an extracurricular activity as they pursue academic disciplines. For others, it means a major or a minor as they make art a part of their college studies. A select few are building on their solid foundation from The Harker Conservatory as they train to pursue their work professionally. Here are the stories of three such alumnae, who headed off to the East Coast to pursue their dreams of acting.
Cristina Jerney headed to Northeastern University in Boston for intimate theater training and an interdisciplinary curriculum. “Northeastern’s lots of fun,” Jerney says. “[The program’s] small, but it’s growing.” The program’s small size means the teachers can work very closely with their students, offering “a lot of individual attention.”
This semester, Jerney acted in Calderón de la Barca’s “The Phantom Lady.” She played a variety of ensemble roles in the 1629 Spanish piece, which featured heavy doses of romance and sword-fighting. In classes, the actors work to release themselves from attitudes of judgment, engaging in exercises that test their ability to commit and to withstand stress. Her curriculum is all theater classes with the exception of a writing class. In her next semester, Jerney will begin to incorporate her multidisciplinary interests, branching out into film and media. She calls Northeastern a “great opportunity to study what I love.”
When a friend from Harker visited her, the two discussed just how well Harker had prepared them. Jerney recalls traveling to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where the Harker Conservatory instituted a rule that if students were even a minute late for their call, they would not be allowed to perform in the show that night. That level of discipline instilled a professionalism in Jerney that has served her well at Northeastern, where she has been able to build on skills from Harker in an environment where all of the students around her are pursuing arts for their education. “I like understanding people, and I like understanding what they do and why they do it,” she says. That sentiment is the basis for her love of performing, and why she wants to be a professional actress.
Apurva Tandon is at Williams College in Massachusetts, and so far, she has been bowled over. “Oh, my gosh, they have everything,” she raves. “It’s so professional, it’s crazy. They have a scene shop. They have a costume shop. They have people working there all the time. There are three different theaters in one building. And they’re beautiful. To someone who does theater, it’s a goldmine.”
Tandon has been expanding her horizons and taking on exciting and inventive projects. A highlight of her first semester has been a production she acted in of “Fefu and Her Friends,” an experimental play by Maria Irene Fornés that takes place in multiple rooms of a house, all at once, with the audience divided into groups and watching different scenes in different locations. Tandon’s production took place in a real house on Williams’ campus, making for a wholly intimate performance. “I had a scene where I was sitting on a couch in a living room, and the audience was literally told to sit on the couch next to me and my scene partner.” The experience was a revelation for Tandon, one that taught her more about feminism and gave her the most modern show she had ever been in. “They’re so open to trying new things” at Williams. “It’s very, very open. Very experimental.”
Tandon credits Harker for having prepared her extraordinarily well for her theater classes. At the moment, her theater course load builds on the Study of Theater class she took with Jeffrey Draper. “I remember all of this from my freshman year at Harker!” she sometimes finds herself thinking.
For Tandon, the university experience has been all about getting involved. “I’ve literally tried out for everything,” she boasts. “If you’re not afraid to try out for everything and put yourself out there, something will come to you. Honestly, I just want to be involved with everything I can.” So far, that’s meant working with both the department and a studentrun group. She even performed an improv show in a storefront window on one of Williamstown’s main streets. Says Tandon, “I’m definitely getting to know the wonders of sitespecific work!”
You can find Hannah Prutton ’13 on Broadway these days – that’s 890 Broadway, at the tip of Union Square in New York City, where she trains with The Meisner Extension at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. It’s an intensive program devoted to the teachings of acting guru Sanford Meisner, who divined a series of exercises and philosophies to aid actors in living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. “It’s very stressful,” says Prutton, “but really rewarding.”
Classes begin for Prutton in the early morning with two hours of Suzuki training, where a teacher she calls an “absolute genius” leads the actors in a physical theater technique inspired by Greek theater and martial arts. The technique, which takes an enormous amount of energy and features copious amounts of stomping, is designed to increase an actor’s natural awareness of his or her body. From there, she is off to voice and speech class, where the young lady with British parents hopes to finally “learn a proper American accent!” That brings her to three hours of acting training, where the students engage in a series of repetition-based exercises. These “allow our scene partner to influence our emotions, and to have that result in truth on the stage,” says Prutton. Because people develop “habits to avoid being hurt or being honest with other people,” the actors use the practices to lean into being truthful with partners and let go of the barriers to honest emotion. “When you actually get to the moment where you really, truly feel what they’re saying to you, it’s horrible,” says Prutton of the painful breakthroughs the technique inspires. “But amazing afterwards.”
Freshmen actors at New York University are forbidden from doing plays in their first year to prevent them from falling back on old habits. In this way, the students are given a full year to immerse themselves in their new training, letting go of how they used to act in high school and rebuilding their processes in the image of their professional training. According to Prutton, the actors leave behind “older habits that we’ve accumulated over the years” in favor of finding their “most truthful selves.” Her second year, she will begin character work in her studio and begin testing out what she has learned in productions.
For Prutton, “Harker is the reason I’m so passionate about theater.” Her sophomore year, Prutton traveled to Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with the Harker Conservatory to perform the musical “Pippin.” Now, she can leave her studio after a full day of classes, walk across the street to board the subway, and hop uptown to Times Square to catch “Pippin” on Broadway. Overall, she is learning a lot in her freshman year. “The technique that we’re learning is very compatible with my style as an actor,” she says. “I really love it.”
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
At the annual Head of School’s Circle Celebration on May 2, Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement, announced that Jeff and Marieke Rothschild (Isaac, grade 12; Jackiel, grade 10) had generously made a $10 million matching gift challenge. The annual celebration honors Harker’s leadership donors, who are recognized, thanked and shown the impact of their donations.
The Rothschilds will match, dollar-for-dollar, all gifts to the capital campaign up to $10 million that meet the following criteria: 1) pledges must be made between April 21 and Oct. 12, 2014, and 2) pledge payments must be made in the years 2014, 2015 and/or 2016.
The challenge is meant to inspire all members of the Harker community to join in and make a gift to help build a much-needed theater and gymnasium. The matching gift challenge, if achieved, will allow the school to begin construction on the new events center a full year earlier than previously thought possible without a gift of this magnitude.
“Marieke and I looked at the Harker community, what the school has meant to our children; we know that this events center is not going to be here for their benefit, directly, but everything on this campus is here for a reason. It is here because the Harker community envisioned it and pulled together and made it happen, and this project will be no different,” Rothschild said at the event, surrounded on stage by performing arts and athletics students.
The Rothschilds had previously made a $1 million gift to the school to help with the purchase of the preschool campus. They decided to contribute again with a transformational gift, leading the fundraising effort for the events center because they recognize the impact the building will have on the entire Harker community. Structuring their matching gift challenge as they did – by matching the pledges and gifts made within the given time frame – will enable Harker to provide this much-needed facility to benefit the students and families one year sooner.
If the match is met and construction goes as planned, the Harker community will cut the ribbon on the events center in fall 2016. Current Harker families, as well as alumni and parents of alumni, will be able to enjoy games and productions in much more suitable facilities, improving the experience significantly. The enhanced school spirit and pride invoked by the activities that will take place in this new building is one of the most anticipated benefits.
Preparing students for college and beyond by providing academic and programmatic excellence is at the heart of the Harker mission and will continue to be the central focus of the school’s whole-mission approach. Head of School Chris Nikoloff said that the events center will have a positive impact on Harker’s century-old mission both directly, from the numerous activities and events that will take place there, and also through the ability to allow other departments to expand into spaces currently used by athletics and performing arts that will be vacated when those activities move into the new facility.
Donors who rise to the challenge and make a capital gift during the match period will be recognized as a member of the Partners’ Circle, with their name added to an inaugural plaque in the atrium of the events center. Securing the $10 million in matching gift pledges from the Harker community over the next few months is a tall order, but, as the Rothschilds said at the Head of School’s Circle Celebration, “Together we can all make this happen. The sooner, the better.”
Many parents and faculty members already have started planning their pledges and making gifts to be matched. Harker parents Alex Franz and Keiko Horiguchi (Kai, grade 7; Maya, grade 5; Nina, grade 3) stated, “We can see the strategic importance of the theater and gymnasium project for all of Harker, so we wanted to join the campaign to support this construction. Harker provides an exceptional setting where kids can unfold their potential and reach for the stars. The amazingly generous matching grant, which lets us double our contribution, led us to donate before the beginning of the next school year, and we wanted to support the best-case construction schedule so we just decided to make the donation right away.”
Those interested in learning more about the proposed events center can visit www.harker.org/eventscenter to review the “Case for Supporting the Events Center” booklet. A video featuring a virtual tour and several members of the Harker community – students, parents and teachers alike – sharing the impact they envision the new building will have on the Harker community is also available on the website, alongside Harker’s Vision Statement, which illustrates how the construction of the events center is aligned with Harker’s overall strategic plan through 2020.
Interest in making a capital pledge can be expressed by clicking the “Pledge Now” button on the events center website or by contacting Rosenthal directly at joe.rosenthal@harker.org or 408.345.9266.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Amid the festivities leading up to graduation, seniors active in the performing arts have a pregraduation of sorts: they graduate from the Harker Conservatory’s certificate program, signaling their successful completion of a fouryear course in dance, technical theater, theater, vocal or instrumental music, or musical theater.
Seniors performed selections from their portfolios to a packed house at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater in San Jose.
Acts ranged from a Shakespearean monologue, divided into two parts performed toward the beginning and end of the show, to a clarinet sonata during which the instrument was slowly dismantled section by section, leaving the player with only a mouthpiece. Dance graduates performed and musical theater students enacted moments from Broadway shows. Vocalists, a harpist playing a traditional Chinese instrument, and classical and jazz instrumentalists rounded out the eclectic evening, overseen by a technical theater graduate.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
The annual middle school dance show, Dance Jamz, shook the Blackford Theater March 14-15. Directed by Gail Palmer and assistant directors Rachelle Haun and Kimberley Teodoro (who were also the costumers), the show had students performing exhilarating and complex routines to hitmakers including Lady Gaga, Imagine Dragons, One Republic and Ludacris. Kento Vo, Jasmine Villarreal and Ernie Sierra also choreographed. The veteran team of technical director Paul Vallerga, sound engineer Brian Larsen and lighting designer Natti Pierce-Thomson were indispensable, as always.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Spring break was especially memorable for The Harker School Orchestra, which traveled to Chicago to perform at the Chicago International Music Festival – and came home with a Gold Award. Earlier this year, the orchestra was chosen to premiere a new piece by composer Jeremy Van Buskirk. The piece, titled “… such as I am you will be,” was one of three performed by the orchestra at the festival, along with Arturo Marquez’s “Danzon No. 2” and the fourth movement of “Symphony No. 5” by Dmitri Shostakovich.
The orchestra’s performance earned high praise from Deborah Gibbs, president and CEO of World Projects, the production company behind the festival, who declared The Harker School Orchestra was the best high school orchestra she had ever heard. Chris Florio, upper school music teacher and director of the orchestra, was similarly enthused. “We have been preparing all year long for this event and I could not be more proud of how our students performed,” he said.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
The middle school performing arts department turned to the works of Walt Disney for this year’s spring musical, bringing the classic animated film “Aladdin” to the stage at the Blackford Theater. The musical followed the plot of the beloved 1992 film, in which the street urchin for which the movie is named (played by Sahil Kapur, grade 8) comes into the possession of a magic lamp containing a Genie (Sameep Mangat, grade 8) who will grant him three wishes. This prompts a series of exciting and hilarious adventures, with Aladdin trying to undo the machinations of the evil vizier Jafar (Akhil Arun, grade 8) while love blooms between Aladdin and the sultan’s daughter, Princess Jasmine (Vanessa Tyagi, grade 8).
As in the film, the stage production contained many elaborate musical numbers, which were choreographed by Natalie Quilici. Meanwhile, vocal director Mary Ellen Agnew-Place and music director Lane Sanders presided over the fantastic music from the band and the cast. The film’s Arabian setting was rendered wonderfully by set designer Paul Vallerga, with lighting designed by Natti Pierce-Thomson. As always, student crew members were a crucial part of the operation, helping to ensure that the production ran smoothly at all times.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Upper school vocal groups came together for In Concert on May 2. Jennifer Sandusky directed Bel Canto in a diverse set including “Tres Cantos Nativos Dos Indios Krao,” a song that combines melodies sung by South American natives.
The girls choir Cantilena, directed by Susan Nace, sang selections from Europe, including “Dancing Song” by Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály.
Next, the always-entertaining boys a cappella group Guys’ Gig brought smiles and laughter to the show with pre-intermission picker-uppers.
Camerata, also directed by Nace, opened the second half of the show, finishing with Greg Gilpin’s “Keep on Walkin’ Down that Heavenly Road.”
Show choir Downbeat, co-directed by Sandusky and Laura Lang-Ree, came out of the gate with a rousing version of “Something’s Coming” from “West Side Story.” They were joined by Bel Canto for the final song of the evening, Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run.”
This year’s Spring Orchestra Concert on April 18 brought the middle and upper schools orchestras together on stage at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater in San Jose, delighting the audience with traditional, classical and modern selections.
A trio of grade 6 groups, led by director Dave Hart, performed first. Grade 6 Winds first played the traditional Irish folk tune “Danny Boy,” followed by “Let It Go” from the 2013 Disney film “Frozen,” with both pieces arranged by the students of the ensemble.
A set by grade 6 Strings, also directed by Hart, spanned several centuries, beginning with Reinhold Gliere’s “Russian Sailor’s Dance.” The group followed this with the famous “Scarborough Fair” before finishing with a symphonic rendition of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.”
A special treat that evening was a series of performances by the middle school chamber groups. The first was an all-grade 7 ensemble comprising Christie Chen on alto saxophone, Arushee Bhoja and Connie Xu on guitar, Donna Boucher on flute and Sonal Muthal on violin. Grade 7 students Arthur Oung on cello and Tiffany Wong on harp were the second group to perform, and the grade 8 duo of Justin Au on flute and Andrew Semenza on piano played third.
The strains of Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance No. 5” rang through the theater as the Grades 7-8 Orchestra began its set, which also included the Symphonic Suite from “The Lord of the Rings” by Howard Shore and Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings Mvt. IV.”
The Harker School Orchestra, directed by Chris Florio, fresh off of winning a Gold Award at the Chicago International Music Festival, headlined the evening, playing works from Wagner, Shostakovich and Mozart. A highlight was the West Coast premiere of Jeremy Van Buskirk’s “… such as I am you shall be,” which the orchestra played for the first time in Chicago.