The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

Harmonics poses at the end of Lullaby of Birdland. The middle school show choir performed with white hats, dancing across the stage and weaving through formations.

United Voices strike a chord

by Alison Yang, Assistant A&E Editor March 8, 2023

At a school like Harker, distance is inevitable. It hides between campuses, between ages and between the cracks left by the pandemic. United Voices, held on March 3 for the first time since 2018, examines...

An illustration depicting Rihannas half-time performance during Super Bowl LVII on Feb. 12. Her jumpsuit revealed her pregnancy, with a baby bump visible through the layers of red.

Light up the sky: A review of Rihanna’s half-time performance

by Emma Milner and Hima Thota March 8, 2023

After seven years away from the stage, Rihanna is back, at least for the Super Bowl.  Performing in an all-red jumpsuit, Rihanna’s performance to her hits also served as a pregnancy reveal with the...

Music Monday is a new installation featuring a different category of songs on a weekly basis.

Music Monday: Stay cozy with Aquila

by Alena Suleiman, Co-Arts & Entertainment Editor March 6, 2023

Music Monday features a different category of songs on a weekly basis. Each Monday, Harker Aquila will release seven songs, one song for each day of the week. With a forecast of light rain for the week,...

AP Art History recreates Georges Seurats A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The AP art history tableau is a beloved Hoscars tradition.

Trip down memory lane: Nostalgia-themed Hoscars return for fifth annual run

by Jessica Wang February 21, 2023

Spotlight. To thunderous applause and a dramatic backing track, on saunters Gordon Chen (12) carrying Kris Estrada (12) to the center of the stage. And so begins the fifth annual Hoscars performances,...

Yasmin Sudarsanam (10), Eileen Ma (12) and Maya Affaki (10) dance to  Peer Pressure. Eileen choreographed the dance by translating her favorite moments from the song to dance movements.

Growing “Better 2Gether”: Students perform in annual Dance Production

by Young Min and Alison Yang February 19, 2023

The curtains draw back as the Patil Theater is plunged into darkness. Suddenly, strings of neon light descend, illuminating the stage as the first notes of “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock...

At the center of Japantown towers the five-story concrete Peace Pagoda. The Buddhist stupa was a gift from the former sister city of Osaka, Japan and now serves as an iconic landmark and gathering spot of Japantown.

Out of the nest: A day in Japantown, San Francisco

by Katerina Matta and Alison Yang February 18, 2023

San Francisco’s Japantown, or “Nihonmachi,” boasts a wealth of delicious restaurants, family-owned businesses and vestiges of the hidden history of the Japanese-American community. Despite the once...

Harshini Chaturvedula (11) plays the viola with Orchestra during the Winter Instrumental Concert. Held on Jan. 13, the concert invited audiences to watch multiple upper school instrumental groups and soloists perform various musical styles, ranging from upbeat Latin jazz to slow ballads.

Annual Winter Instrumental Concert showcases diverse musical styles and performances

by Ariana Goetting and Young Min February 2, 2023

Warm orange lights illuminate the stage as Lab Band settles into their chairs, carefully preparing their instruments. With the flick of the conductor’s wrist, music flows and reverberates throughout...

Ellen Bass is the author of four poetry collections, including most recently, “Indigo,” published in 2020. Bass spoke with Harker Aquila about her experiences reading, writing, and teaching poetry, making a home and a life out of this art.

The Poet’s Project: ‘The magic and mystery of it’

by Felix Chen and Sarah Mohammed January 24, 2023

Ellen Bass is the author of four poetry collections, including most recently, “Indigo” (Copper Canyon Press 2020). Her poems have been published in the New Yorker and the American Poetry Review and...

The Secret History, a 1992 novel by Donna Tartt, carries one theme throughout: Beauty is terror, and the incessant pursuit of beauty, whether through constructing a certain persona or chasing a sensory experience, leads to evil. The characters’ descent into madness and subsequently, ruin, illustrates the consequences of pursuing a glamorous, hedonistic existence and reminds us to appreciate the good, not the beautiful.

Book Corner: ‘Beauty is harsh’

by Alena Suleiman, Co-Arts & Entertainment Editor January 19, 2023

An onslaught of white as far as your eyes can see. Freezing, you trudge your way through heaps of snow. Yet the blindingly beautiful scene masks a treacherous murder, as you and other Vermonters discover...

Performers unveil work in the arts during Student Directed Showcase productions

by Sidak Sanghari, Hima Thota, Alison Yang, and Sally Zhu January 18, 2023

A misshapen blob of students, dressed in costumes ranging from floral shirts to ski boots to construction vests, gather onstage. Wrapping their arms around each other, they squat down, heads bowed in anticipation....

Performers gather on stage to close out the Big Assembly Day show. Upper school students watched Harker’s annual holiday concert Big Assembly Day (BAD) on Dec. 9, where ensembles from the lower, middle and upper schools performed various acts across all campuses.

Annual Big Assembly Day performing arts concert kindles festive spirit at all campuses

by Alison Yang, Vika Gautham, and Alena Suleiman December 23, 2022

As the audience settles into the plush velvet of the Patil Theater seats, the orchestra crowded on stage awaits eagerly. A sea of middle and high school students — some in glittering gold dresses, others...

Downbeat members Alan Jiang (12) and Shareen Chahal (11) pose as they perform “Deck the Halls.  Upper school groups Harker Dance Company, Kinetic Krew and Downbeat as well as several middle school groups performed at Santana Rows Spirit of the Row on Dec. 6.

Harker performing arts groups light up night at ‘Spirit of The Row’

by Alison Yang and Alena Suleiman December 14, 2022

Though the chill of the night intensifies, the crowd packed tightly around the small stage only continues to grow. Small ornaments and string lights strewn across the set highlight the massive tree in...

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