Arts Entertainment
The Chronicle • April 30, 2014
Hitting the right notes By Jacob Goodman Last spring break, Sara Shakliyan sat to the left of choir teacher Roger Guerrero translating questions from Bulgarian into English. The interview, which was being filmed for the Bulgarian National television, was edited, and intercut with footage of the Chamber Singers performing at the Bulgaria Concert Hall. The trip took the Chamber Singers through Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria and presented a rare opportunity for the upper school accompanist to visit her native country and her family while being part of The Music of America in the Frames of European Music Festival. “It’s not a usual destination for people,” Shakliyan said. “But it has a great heritage of choral music. We knew there was a great audience to appreciate it. The performance was pretty phenomenal.” Shakliyan was born in Plodiv, Bulgaria to a family of musicians, her father a violinist, and her mother a pianist. She started playing piano at age 5, and by age 10, she was performing with orchestras. “I was focused on music, and I knew I wanted to do that,” Shakliyan said. “Looking back I think I maybe could have done something else, but it’s such a sacrifice that you have to start at an early age and follow through. I know the other art forms are also hard but drawing or acting, you could start it a little bit later, I suppose, but with music you have to start when you’re a child.”
A former Bulgarian piano prodigy, performing arts accompanist Sara Shakliyan juggles music, raising two young daughters and a husband deployed in the army.
She later attended the and Hawaii. Bulgaria State Conservatory In Hawaii, she worked with in Sofia, where she received the Hawaii Theatre for Youth a bachelors degree in choral as a musical director. music and piano performance. She was in the education A f t e r department school in Bulof the Hawaii garia, ShakOpera. liyan decided In 2005, Looking back to pursue S h a k l i y a n ’s further educomposiI think I maybe could cation in tion entitled have done something America par“Sednalo e tially due to Djore dos” else, but it’s such a the difficulwas published sacrifice that you have ties of being by the Santa a professional Barbara Muto start at an early age musician in sic Publishing and follow through.” her home company. country. The song —Sara Shakliyan “Music was preAccompanist miered education is by very strong in the HarBulgaria, so v a r d -We s t we come very well prepared,” lake Chamber Singers at the Shakliyan said. “It’s the real- American Choral Directors ization afterwards that’s hard Association National because Bulgaria was a com- Convention. munist country until 1987. So S h a k l i y a n ’s my generation graduated at first daughter, the time of the transition. It’s Alba, was born really difficult. If I had stayed in 2006. now, even in the country’s capW h e n ital, I would only make, maybe Alba was 10 $300 to $400 a month.” months old, She came to California in S h a k l i y a n ’s 1998 to obtain her masters de- husband was gree in choral music at USC. deployed to She continued into a doc- Iraq. torate program and received Shakliher Ph.D. in choral music in yan decided 2004. to return to While in Los Angeles, Bulgaria so Shakliyan met her husband she wouldn’t Jairo Mendez, who is an ac- be alone. tive duty soldier in the United “ Y o u States Army. know you’re She toured around the in the game, country with him for the next and so you few years, staying wherever have to play his military assignments took it. I have the him, in California, Virginia kids so it’s
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Shifting the Spotlight 41 students will be members of Chamber Singers in the 2014-2015 school year. Tenors
Sabrina Batchler ’15 Jessica Brandon ’16 Laura Campbell ’16 Elizabeth Edel ’15 Sara Lucas ‘17 Delilah Napier ’15 Claire Nordstrom ’15 Marcella Park ’15 Karin Rhynes ’16 Shelby Weiss ’16 Jessica Wolf ’16
Nick Abouzeid ’15 Saransh Desai-Chowdhry ‘16 Landon Fadel ’15 James Hansen ’16 Henry Platt ’17 Dylan Schifrin ’16 Jordan Strom ’16 Benny Weisman ’15 Adam Yaron ’15
Altos
Basses
Ari Berman ’15 Katherine Calvert ’15 Nina Dubovitsky ’15 Elizabeth Gaba ’17 Elizabeth Goran ‘15 Nina Juarez ’16 Maxine Moore ’15 Kelly Morrison ’16 Jenna Thompson ’16 Marianne Verrone ’15 Jona Yadidi ’16
Jackson Beavers ’15 Michael Edwards ‘16 Will Hariton ’15 Matthew Jung ’16 Hudson Ling ’15 Kenneth Noble ’16 Lucas Perez ’16 Monte Samuelian ’16 Teddy Sokoloff ’15 Bryce Terman’16
SOURCE: ROGER GUERRERO GRAPHIC BY MORGANNE RAMSEY
transcendent.” In 2012, Shakliyan’s husband was sent to Korea. Their second daughter, Nairi, was born in 2010, and Shakliyan decided to stay in Los Angeles with her two young daughters. “It’s really hard,” Shakliyan said. “It’s good because we have a mutual understanding of the kind of job he does and the kind of job I do. He knows that I love working at Harvard-Westlake. We said ‘okay, we’re going to go through this. And now he’s doing his last year in Korea and then he’s done because things have to settle. One of us has to follow the other. The girls miss their dad.”
SU JIN NAM/CHRONICLE
Plays chosen as national winner, semifinalists in theater’s festival By Caitlin Neapole
Sopranos
not so emotionally difficult, but he doesn’t have anybody,” she said. She returned to Los Angeles in 2009 and joined Harvard-Westlake as an accompanist for Guerrero, who she had worked with during her time at USC. Her husband had received an assignment to Los Angeles and came with her. Shakliyan has also been an accompanist for the Southern California Honor Choir for the last five years. She is also a counselor at Idyllwild summer arts camp. “It’s imperative that the younger generation is involved in arts,” Shakliyan said. “And here we have such talented kids. On an everyday basis you can see transformations because music is able to bring out so much of each individual. I don’t know what the right expression is, but it’s really transcendent. And you can see young people during a performance and they’re
and Enya Huang ’15 were selected as semifinalists. Aiyana White ’14 was anKatz’s play, “American nounced as the winner of The Pie,” was inspired by “Friday Blank Theatre Company’s Night Lights,” and covers the Young Playwrights Festival, story of an adolescent boy which received over 250 na- and girl who become friends tionwide submissions this through their town, football year. and life dreams. White’s play “Barophobia,” “It’s a commentary on will receive a professional the south in the ’80s and raproduction at The Blank The- cial congregation and kind of atre in Hollywood in June. about how even really differWhite’s play foent people can form cuses on the interlasting connections,” action between four Katz said. “It’s an instrangers who meet credible honor to even in an airport and be selected as a semidiscuss their perfinalist. Play writing sonal fears. has recently become “I decided I one of my passions, wanted to write a and I’m lucky to be play that included able to be part of a nathanson’s the sentence, ‘When group with such talAiyana a child screams ented people.” White ’14 for his mother beHuang wrote cause there’s a monabout four characster in the closet, what does ters with their own individual the mother say? Go back to problems under a totalitarian sleep.’” government in her play “ReThe Young Playwrights membering.” Festival is a competition The story concludes with where writers under the age the appearance of a fifth of 19 can submit up to three character who ties the story plays of any content. together. Rebecca Katz ’15, Hannah Huang’s was the only one Dains ’16, Kenneth Noble ’16 of the plays that did not re-
ceive a student production at the Harvard-Westlake Playwright’s Festival. “One of the writers that made the semifinals at this festival is a play we are not producing as part of our Playwright’s Festival 2014,” Moore wrote in an email to the Playwright’s Festival contestants. “I love to hear that because it reinforces what I always say, ‘our H-W Festival is just one festival/competition you all should be submitting your work to.’” “It was very rewarding because the play had been so personal, and the fact that someone liked it was extremely exciting,” Huang said. “Fireborn,” Noble’s play, tells the story of a man in 1969 Ireland who faces moral dilemmas when his relationships with his romantic partner, brother and religon come into conflict. Dains’ play is told in monologues by the survivors of a bridge collapse. No one knows exactly why the bridge collapsed. At the end of her play, it is revealed that a girl removed a bolt from the side of the bridge in her attempt to jump off.