As she recalls her first experiences and exposure to music, senior April Zhang’s eyes light up with hints of reminiscence and appreciation of the lessons it has taught her. She reflects back on her maturation through the years, now being able to joke about her small shortcomings and lessons learned, and expresses gratefulness for the activities she involves herself in.

April was first exposed to music when her parents took her to concerts. Starting violin at the age of 3, she has always remembered playing instruments as an integral part of her life. Not only has she been playing in Harker’s orchestra since her freshman year, but she has also joined an outside orchestra group in the past year.

Although April loves the relationship she has with music now, she recalls having a turbulent relationship with it a few years ago. Conflicted between the idea of technicality and artistry, she recalls feeling as though she wasn’t learning enough technique to feel satisfied with herself and her progress.

As April continued to play the violin throughout high school, she came to the realization that enjoying the practice of playing the violin was more important than excelling purely skill-wise.

“What is more important [to me] now is enjoying yourself and doing the technical stuff if you have the patience for it but not forgetting what music actually is,” April said. “I accepted music as a hobby and not something you have to compete with other people for.”

Coming into Harker in freshman year as a new student, April felt as though she had to prove her abilities to not only herself but those around her. However, as she has grown through the four years, she has not only learned to lose that competitive mindset and enjoy the little things, but she has also learned to embrace herself for who she is, growing more confident in herself as a result.

Close friend Karolyn Cheng (12) also feels as though April has been able to mature and gain confidence throughout these fundamental high school years.

“[April has] grown a lot,” Karolyn said. “Now, she’s less self-conscious than she was when I had first met her, and she’s still very humble, but it’s coming from a better place than it was a few years ago.”

Along with music, April has cherished visual arts through a variety of mediums throughout her childhood as well as teenage years. Although she loves painting and drawing, her favorite genre of art to investigate is conceptual art.

“I have taken a lot of classes on how to do [technical] art, like painting or drawing,” April said. “But what intrigues me the most about art is analytical art. I think of using [art] as a way to pull a part of the real world and piece it back together in a way that makes it more thought-provoking.”

April most treasures using conceptual art as a mechanism to help her further research certain topics of interest, such as the education system. April picked up interest in this topic after she began tutoring music to little kids, something she was initially reluctant to do. She feels as though she has been able to learn even more about the violin and become able to apply her fascination with technicality and artistry into her teaching, as she is able to determine the balance of both.

“I noticed how teaching really taught me a lot more about how violin actually works and how people learn things, and that made me understand the artistry [versus] technicality thing because obviously, you have to teach both, but if you teach one more [than the other], then there’s an imbalance,” April said.

One of April’s favorite aspects of teaching is the ability to help students learn to appreciate music not only by listening to it but also by applying it to different aspects of life as well.

“I was thinking about how to keep my students interested, so I started giving them pieces to listen to every week,” April said. “I did start with introducing the really famous classical music pieces, so I gave one of my students ‘Clair de Lune,’ which is impressionism which doesn’t really depict anything specific. He was inspired to actually draw out the piece at home and I was really inspired by his reaction to it.”

April has also been able to teach lessons to her close friends, including Tina Zhong (12), who feels as though her friendship with April has helped her navigate through high school due to April’s steadfast encouragement.

“[April] works really hard and is super dedicated but also super caring,” Tina said. “She has taught me to keep on working, even if you don’t get any results, to just keep on going. She also doesn’t broadcast all her accomplishments even though she has a lot of them.”

As April prepares to graduate high school and move on to college, she hopes she will be remembered as a successful yet humble student who always wanted to contribute to her community.

“I don’t want people remembering my name or me specifically, but I like the idea of staying really humble and being okay with being behind the scenes … a quiet sense of community,” April said.