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?’”
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.
The Harker Concert Series is proud to present jazz pianist Gerald Clayton, recently nominated for his third Grammy award, who will perform with his Gerald Clayton Trio on Fri., Jan. 20, 2012 at 8 p.m. at the Harker upper school campus’ Nichols Hall auditorium. Born in the Netherlands and raised in Los Angeles, Clayton, 27, has become one of the most recognizable young talents in modern jazz, performing with masters such as Lewis Nash, Al Foster and Clark Terry.
Clayton, who has played to acclaim in the U.S. and Europe, has also received rave reviews from The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and DownBeat magazine, and in 2008 was recognized by the readers of DownBeat as one of the top emerging talents in jazz piano. His compositions have been performed by New York City’s Jazz Gallery and the BBC Orchestra.
He netted his first Grammy nominations in 2010 with a composition titled “Battle Circle.” The album on which it appeared, The Clayton Brothers’ release “The New Song and Dance,” which featured his father, John Clayton, on bass, was nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, making the young Gerald a two-time nominee. His latest album, “Bond: The Paris Sessions,” was recently nominated for a Grammy award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. Recorded in Paris, “Bond” finds Clayton and his band exhibiting what he calls “a new level of chemistry.”
Tickets for this event are available for $20 and can be purchased through the Harker Concert Series website. A pre-event reception will start at 7 p.m., and hors d’oeuvres and beverages will be available. For more information, please contact communications@harker.org.
“I read dozens of scripts each year to find one that is a good fit for the middle school,” said Monica Colletti, a middle school performing arts teacher at The Harker School. She directs the fall play, and finding the perfect fit is a long process. “When researching this year’s show, I had heard that David Mamet, a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, had written a play for younger audiences.”
The show ended up being this year’s hilarious, lively play. “The Revenge of the Space Pandas,” is a sci-fi spoof that centers around two kids, Binky Rudich (Akhil Arun, grade 6) and Vivian Mooster (Amrita Singh, grade 7), along with Binky’s pet sheep, Bob (Maxwell Woehrmann, grade 6). In the play, Binky invents a two-speed clock, which slows time and allows them to spin off Earth and onto the planet Goolagong, which is ruled by Georgina Topax (Chandler Nelson, grade 8) and guarded by giant space pandas.
Casting started in early September, and Colletti remembers exactly what drew her to pick the main characters. Arun had a naturally curious and innocent quality that she wanted for the character Binky. Singh, she remembers, had an attractive “high energy and youthful spirit in the auditions.” Woehrmann, who plays a very civilized, nearly human sheep, was picked nearly right away. “As soon as I saw him, I thought he would make a great Bob.”
The cast list was posted about a week later, and they jumped right into rehearsals, which presented fun challenges not just for the cast, but for the crew as well. On the planet Goolagong, people are executed by having a giant pumpkin dropped onto them. Danny Dunn, the technical director at the lower school, came in to assist the tech crew in creating a three-foot tall, four-foot wide, extremely light pumpkin.
Colletti said one thing in particular also helped everyone find his or her voice. “The kids really seemed to come into their characters as soon as we had the costumes,” she said.
With all the pieces in place, the cast put on a truly fun, high energy, out-of-this-world show that took them for rescuing a kidnapped sheep to landing in space prison. They not only got to perform it for family and friends, but also got to go to lower school, and perform it for the students there.
Colletti said she ended up having a lot of favorites with this show, but nothing could compare to the feeling of watching the closing performance. “Up to that point,” she said, “I [was] still taking notes and making suggestions to the actors. But during that last performance I ha[d] the opportunity to watch a really fun play starring the kids I’ve had the chance to get to know really well. I love[d] that.”
With the holiday season gearing up, Santana Row, a popular San Jose shopping center, had their annual tree lighting ceremony, and The Harker School was once again invited to perform for the occasion. Harker has performed at this event for the last several years, and this year they were joined by choirs from Willow Glen High School and dance teams from Lincoln High School as part of the pre-show entertainment. The schools were followed by performances by two current pop singers and the actual lighting of the tree, which was moved this year from the plaza in front of Maggiano’s to the center of the Row next to the chess board.
Harker students from the lower school through the upper school got on stage at 5:30 p.m., performing seven numbers for the crowd that gathered. Downbeat, the upper school show choir directed by Laura Lang-Ree and Catherine Snider, kicked things off with a performance of “The Joint is Jumpin’.” They also performed “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” in the middle of the show, and closed things out with a rendition of “I’ve Got the Music in Me.” High Voltage, the middle school boys dance ensemble directed by Karl Kuehn, took the second number in the show, performing to “Smooth Criminal.” Dance Fusion, a dance ensemble with students from grades 4-6 directed by Gail Palmer, followed, and chose “Working Day and Night for Christmas” as their number. The upper school JV Dance Troupe, directed by Amalia de la Rosa, was also there, and performed “Party Rockin’ in the House Tonight for Santa.” Finally, Showstoppers, the middle school girls dance ensemble directed by Rachelle Ellis, rounded out the holiday spirit with the second-to-last song of the night, a lively rendition of “Jingle Bells.”
“All our groups introduced themselves as from The Harker School, and very sweetly told what their performance group was about – nice touch,” said Lang-Ree. She also mentioned that the location and staging was well done, allowing the enormous crowd plenty of room to watch the show. Overall, she said, it was a “huge hit.”
Recently, the San Francisco Day School decided their performing arts program needed to be revised and revamped. Of all the schools in the Bay Area, they chose Harker as the school whose arts program they wanted to emulate. In mid-November, a task force from the school came down to visit all three campuses, and get a varied taste of what Harker offers.
The first stop was a music class at the upper school, followed immediately by a meeting with an upper school music teacher. Then they went to the lower school, where they met with teachers at their department meeting, then observed a dance class and a music class, as well as a rehearsal. Middle school was the final stop. There, the team sat in on a strings class, then had another chance to meet with and talk to teachers.
The task force spent a full school day at the three campuses, and after all the class time and meetings, headed back to San Francisco with a first-hand perspective on the arts program.
During the middle school trip week in late October, while Sahana Narayanan, grade 8, was visiting Washington, D.C., she received an exciting email from Dave Hart, the middle school instrumental music teacher. Hart was also away, participating in The Harker School’s teacher exchange program in Japan, but the news couldn’t wait. “Dear Sahana,” it read. “You have been accepted into the 2012 Western Division Junior High Girls Honor Choir! CONGRATULATIONS!”
His enthusiasm was well placed. The choir, part of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Western Conference, received auditions from up and down the West Coast, as well as from Arizona, Utah and Hawaii. According to Hart, “These conferences invite choral educators from around the West Coast to attend. Along with wonderful lectures and poster sessions, top educators are invited to work with [the honor choirs].” This year’s conference will be held in Reno, Nev., which means Narayanan will have the chance to work with a variety of excellent choral educators when she travels there in February.
Hart encouraged Narayanan, as well as other students in Vivace (a choir offered to grade 7-8 students by audition only), to audition for the honor choir. “To prepare for this audition, [Narayanan] asked for the guidance of Harker’s Jennifer Cowgill,” said Hart. Cowgill is a performing arts teacher at the lower and upper schools, and helped Narayanan put together what Hart called “a winning audition. She did a fantastic job working with her.” Hart says the audition process involved singing two scales to show the singers range and intonation. Then they were asked to sing one previously selected song (“My Country ‘Tis of Thee”), and one song of their choice.
“I was extremely lucky to have worked with Ms. Cowgill because this style of singing was relatively new to me,” said Narayanan. “She was so supportive and extremely helpful!”
Hart participated in choirs such as this one when he was in school, and found the experience very rewarding. “It is special when you get a chance to spend time with other people who have a similar passion for music. When I heard about the ACDA Western Division Junior High Honor Choir, I was excited to offer the opportunity to audition to the members of my choir. It didn’t surprise me that Sahana showed up to find out more. She has a great voice and she is quite a musician. Music just seems to hold a special place in her life.”
Narayanan feels similarly about the opportunity to spend time with other choral singers and educators. “Being around so many people who are extremely passionate about music is definitely something I’m excited about. I’m also honored to be representing Harker,” she said.
The audition process can be scary, and Hart acknowledged the bravery needed to participate. “You never know what will happen with these types of auditions. The hard part is putting yourself out there and giving yourself a chance to be selected. You have to be willing to fail [in order] to create new and wonderful opportunities for yourself. Sahana stepped up to this challenge, and great things happened for her.”
Narayanan viewed the chance to audition as something exciting and positive. “My decision to audition for the choir was partly motivated by having a fantastic time in Vivace,” she said. “Even though I was new to Harker, everyone was so supportive and encouraged me every step of the way. I was also driven to audition because this was a completely new and exciting realm of singing for me. For me, this is just the first step. Luckily, I get to pursue these opportunities throughout my time at Harker.”
In early November, The Harker School’s grade 4 students boarded a bus to the Sunnyvale Theater, where they saw “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The students usually attend a play this time of year, and as Nancy Tomlitz, a grade 4 English teacher, says, “Legends are a part of short stories in literature that we study during trimester one, so [the play] fits in perfectly with our curriculum.” One parent chaperon per homeroom accompanied the students and teachers, and the students returned from their performing arts experience just in time for lunch. “Overall, it was a great experience,” said Tomlitz. “This production was quite interesting, chock-full of humor and masterfully musical!”
In late October, the Harker Conservatory’s fall play, “You Can’t Take it With You,” showcased from a Thursday to a Saturday in the Blackford Theater, attracting full-house seating and generating lots of laughs.
“You Can’t Take it With You,” by George Kaufman and Moss Hart, was originally performed in 1936, and centers around the eccentric Sycamore family – all of whom have hobbies they love (though are often terrible at), and who live by the philosophy, “Don’t do anything you aren’t going to enjoy doing.” In the play, Alice Sycamore (Cecilia Lang-Ree, grade 11), the most “normal” member of the family, gets engaged to the equally normal Tony Kirby (Kovid Puria, grade 12), vice-president of Kirby and Co. When Tony’s parents come over to meet the family, chaos and hilarity ensue.
The process of getting the show from page to stage started when director Jeff Draper chose the famous piece. “I take many things into account when selecting a play,” Draper said. “I need a show that has many roles for the large number of students we serve with the Harker Conservatory. I also need challenges for the actors, and especially for the female students. Most plays are written by men, for male directors, and for a largely male cast. I like plays that tell stories about women and girls, or at least stories that appeal to them. And I look for a genre or style that will complement those done by the student directors and Laura Lang-Ree’s musical each spring. Because many students perform in all three productions, I like to provide new styles to learn about.”
Once Draper had decided on “You Can’t Take it With You,” it came time to cast. When Tina Crnko, grade 12, auditioned, Draper made the call to change the central character of Grandpa to Grandma. According to Draper, “Tina showed up and proved that she was the one who had the gravitas to convey the important themes of the play. She effortlessly created a grounded, wise and well-constructed character capable of owning the important role. And the story seemed more ‘balanced’ for a contemporary re-telling of the play because of the switch.”
What followed casting was six weeks of rehearsals, during which time sets were built and costumes made or ordered. Paul Vallerga, technical director at the middle school, created the set design of the Sycamore’s living room, including stairs that convincingly disappeared to the unseen upper floor of the house and doors to the kitchen and basement (the latter of which had to convincingly light up for several fireworks scenes). Natti Pierce-Thomson designed the lights, and as Draper says, “they add so much believability and beauty to the show.” Caela Fujii designed the costumes and provided the props. “Those she couldn’t find,” Draper says, “she bought or built herself. She is a miracle worker and I love working with her!”
Tristan Killeen, grade 12, who played Mr. De Pinna, an ice man who stopped by the Sycamore home eight years ago and never left, said one rehearsal stands out more to him than any other. “One rehearsal, we talked as a cast about the message of the play, and almost everyone in the cast seemed to have a profound moment of introspection in which they learned something about how this play related to their own lives and the lives of those around them,” Killeen says.
“I looked forward to every rehearsal for this play, as they were really what brought the cast together to share the message that this play had to offer,” said Puria, the “normal” fiancé. “In every rehearsal, I learned something new about Tony Kirby, and I am grateful that I had the chance to play the role. It is the creation of the character that makes theater fascinating, and every rehearsal added a new dynamic to the role. I loved every moment in the process of this production.”
Draper worked hard to keep rehearsals interesting. “To keep the comedy fun and see it grow, we played games with the show in rehearsal. One game is called ‘Funny, Smelly, Popular,’ and each actor picks a character they will find hilarious, another that is endowed with extreme body odor, and a third that is very cute, beautiful, etc. They act the show as usual, but with this additional layer adding humor and fun to the blocking, line readings, entrances and actions. We also played tag one time, and it really kept the stage movements very interesting,” he says.
Then it was show time.
The cast hit the stage on opening night with tons of energy. Between Mr. Sycamore (Govi Dasu, grade 12) and Mr. Di Pinna blowing up fireworks in the basement, Alice’s sister Essie (Lydia Werthen, grade 11), dancing across the room, Grandma collected and grounded in the center of the room, and the entire family’s predictable clash with the Kirbys, there was never a dull, stale or boring moment. The cast balanced the play’s laugh-out-loud humor with the underlying message to hold onto the things that truly matter to produce a lively performance with a resonating message.
One of the funniest moments in the play comes when Penny Sycamore – mother of Alice and Essie, and played by Namrata Vakkalagadda, grade 10 – suggests the Sycamores and the Kirbys play a game where she says one word, and everyone must write down the first word that comes to mind. She reads the Kirby’s answers out loud at the game’s end, and discovers that Mrs. Kirby’s responses are quite telling about her relationship with her husband.
Crnko says this was actually her favorite moment in the play, calling it a cast victory. “Mr. Draper challenged us to get a 30-second laugh from the Friday night audience on the moment. We successfully reached 23 seconds on Thursday night, 31 seconds on Friday night, and 35 seconds on Saturday night. We were all over the moon,” says Crnko.
The play’s message of letting go of the things you can’t take with you resonated with audience and cast alike.
“Do what you love to do,” Puria says of the play’s overall message. “The argument between Grandma and Mr. Kirby (Alex Najibi, grade 12) at the end of the play really conveys this message to the audience. Mr. Kirby works long hours and makes loads of money, but he is not truly happy with himself (or his indigestion). The play says, through the character of Mr. Kirby, that finding one’s passion should be the goal of life.”
“A great joy of mine in the past few days is hearing from those who came to the show about how it not only had them laughing and lifted their spirits, but also caused them to reflect in the same way that the cast did,” says Killeen.
Crnko believes that, “In an age when we’re each wrapped up in our own ambitions, overrun by all that needs to be accomplished, and blinded by successes and failures, this show reveals what still remains deeply human about each of us: the need to feel connected.” She goes on to say that, “Grandma Vanderhof, the character I was lucky enough to play, understands what many of us often forget. Grandma knows that the true purpose of life is to be happy, and that monetary success or nominal importance are only superficial means by which many attempt to reach happiness. Mrs. Vanderhof sees that family and connection to those you love makes life worth living.”
She quoted a line from the play – “It’s only a handful of the lucky ones who can look back [at life] and say they even came close [to happiness]” – that perhaps best implies the resonating message at the heart of this comedy: be one of the lucky ones.
The Harker School’s very own Susan Nace, who directs Cantilena and advises Guys’ Gig at Harker, has been chosen as a mentor for the San Francisco Symphony Community of Music Makers’ upcoming choral event and workshop this November. Launched for the San Francisco Symphony’s centennial season to “serve amateur adult musicians” and “promote active participation in music-making and life-long learning,” the Community of Music Makers consists of an amateur orchestra, an amateur chorus and a chamber music program, and features workshop events during which participants are treated to mentorship from musicians and artistic staff of the San Francisco Symphony.
On Nov. 20, from 6:30-9:30 p.m., the Community of Music Makers will host their second-ever event, a choral workshop hosted by San Francisco Symphony Chorus director Ragnar Bohlin on stage at Davies Symphony Hall. The event will present and workshop Heinrich Issac’s “Innsbruck, I Must Leave You,” Brahms’ “Wie Lieblich” from “A German Requiem,” and Handel’s “Zadok the Priest: Coronation Anthem.” The event is a follow-up to the Community’s inaugural workshop on June 28.
Nace shared in a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance in 2010 for her part in the San Francisco Symphony Chorus’ live recording of a “Symphony of a Thousand,” a selection from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in E-flat Major. That same recording was also recognized for Best Classical Album and Best Engineered Classical Album awards.