Tiffany Wong’s (12) bright laugh cuts through the crisp winter air as she leans her full body weight against a glass door in Dobbins Hall, causing it to swing forward.

Somewhere off in the distance, the familiar bell that begins a ten-minute passing period rings. As people swarm around her, checking their watches or walking in quick strides towards their classrooms, she stops and says, “That’s D Major,” then claps her hand over her mouth and laughs.

“It’s almost instinct,” she explains, still trying to control her laughter. And that isn’t surprising, considering that Tiffany has been a harpist for ten years.

Her hair, hastily looped into a messy bun, swings rhythmically as she walks, her head held high despite the impossibly large black backpack resting on her shoulders. She’s jaunty and joyful, but she speaks in measured, careful tones. Much like the harp itself, she’s somehow light and airy but grounded and serious all at once.

“I just see music not as something that always has to be very serious — if you look around us, there’s music everywhere. It’s not something that can only be experienced in a concert hall,” Tiffany said.

Most of Tiffany’s peers are familiar, to some degree, with her involvement in music. Perhaps they’ve watched her in talent shows or youth orchestra performances, her fingers nimbly weaving in and out of the strings of her golden-brown semi-grand harp as harmonious chords drop into a quiet audience. Or maybe they’ve seen her disappear from the upper school campus for days on end when she competes nationally and internationally.

But what isn’t common knowledge is how well-established Tiffany is in the international harp community. Having competed internationally since she was 12 years old, Tiffany has been to competitions and events like the 2017 World Harp Congress, where she was one of five representatives of the United States. And while she looks up to professional harpists like the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra’s Emmanuel Ceysson, many young harpists now look up to her.

“After [a] performance, when I was backstage, a little boy and his mother approached me, and the boy was like, ‘Oh, that’s the harp!’ And so I asked if he wanted me to play something for him, and it was magical the way the whole hallway just stopped and focused on this moment between me and this little boy,” Tiffany said. “That just reminded me of the contributions that I can make to those around me.”

In order to get to this point, Tiffany has had to make sacrifices. She was once an avid ballet dancer — from kindergarten to fourth grade, she dedicated a significant part of her life to dance. But it was during this time that Tiffany became captivated by the harp — and just before she would have begun the intensive training that ballet dancers undergo in order to dance en pointe, she decided to shift her focus to music.

This was the first of a succession of decisions — choosing concerts over trips and vacations, attending harp competitions instead of school. But for Tiffany, one of the most important — and difficult — choices that she has made involved prioritizing her own mental health. Having been a member of the journalism staff for three years, Tiffany decided to leave the program at the end of her junior year in order to diffuse her stress and workload.

“I was, for one of the first times in my life, putting myself and my immediate state of mind before the hypothetical,” Tiffany said. “I had struggled with the decision for so long because I worried about how it would reflect later in my life, but then I realized that those things are things that I can’t control, and that they’re in the future. And I just really needed to focus on the now.”

Looking back on her decision, Tiffany sees it not as giving something up but rather moving forward and making changes in her life.

“I think it’s more like taking a step back and reevaluating who you are and what you need,” Tiffany said. “I think that’s much better than blindly sticking with the status quo.”

And with her parents and brother pursuing STEM-based careers, Tiffany knows and accepts that she has chosen a path that diverges from what may have been expected from her. But at times, living amidst a Silicon Valley culture that glorifies STEM and often views music as an extracurricular rather than a career has led her to feel out of place.

“I think especially at the beginning of high school, I approached everyone passing me not necessarily as a competitor, but as someone I should be distrustful of,” Tiffany said. “I definitely felt that it was difficult for other people to relate to what I was doing … I was frustrated when I wasn’t getting external acknowledgement.”

Despite holding onto this mentality throughout the first couple years of high school, Tiffany has come to appreciate her ability to better understand both herself and others through music.

“I do think [music] is worth it because I’d rather be myself than present myself as a prepackaged, artificial box,” Tiffany said. “Every year I’ve been playing harp, there’s always one song that makes me cry from frustration and happiness — frustration from feeling as if I’d never master whatever I was doing, and happiness from finally sharing the piece with others. Playing the harp has opened a window into knowing myself better as an ambassador, as a collaborator, as a listener and as a performer, and I wouldn’t give that up for anything.”

And through opening up to others about her insecurities rather than bottling them up, she has also realized the value of relating to and communicating with those around her.

“I used to look at other people and think, ‘Oh, there’s no way they could ever be insecure about themselves.’ But it’s remarkable to find that they share a lot of the same sentiments that you do,” Tiffany said. “It’s just a naturally human thing to question yourself, especially at Harker, where sure, some of the standards are self-imposed, but there’s also parental expectations and the thought of being so privileged and the idea that you have to do something with that privilege, even though you’re just a normal, American adolescent.”

Though she continues to explore her interests, Tiffany embraces that idea of being a “normal adolescent.” She makes a point of doing exactly what she enjoys, from dressing up as her teachers every year for Halloween, to amassing a veritable collection of crazy hats, to arranging the Sims soundtrack in music composition program MuseScore.

“I think the things that stand out most are just her growing confidence in herself and her assurance that the way that she is and the things that matter to her and her identity is a good way to be,” said upper school english teacher Christopher Hurshman, who taught Tiffany as a sophomore and was the subject of one of her now-well-known teacher Halloween costumes. “As she’s grown older, she’s settled into being herself. She doesn’t apologize for who she is.”

Those around her have also noticed her personal growth and development.

“I think Tiffany is a really kind and caring person, and that really shines through in that even when she’s going through a lot of struggles in her own life, she always makes a point of asking how you’re doing,” said Ryan Guan (12), who has known Tiffany since elementary school. “I would say she has a big heart in that sense.”

Tiffany isn’t sure exactly what the future holds for her. With a comprehensive harp repertoire under her belt, a career in music seems plausible — but so does delving into a number of other subjects that interest her. Despite the uncertainty that lies in the future, she chooses to focus on the now.

“I’ve come to realize that so many things in life are things that you can’t control,” Tiffany said. “It gives you certain constraints, and I feel that to be truly happy and to have meaning other than reminiscing over and over and over about what you could have done differently, you sometimes have to take what they give you, and just rock that.”