Music Boosters, AAPG and Class of ’14 co-host lunar new year benefit

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The annual Music from the Heart fundraiser was held on Feb. 18 in the Aragon theater. This year’s event was a joint celebration; a lunar new year benefit celebrating the advent of the Year of the Horse was held in conjunction with the fundraiser. A portion of funds were also allocated to the Class of 2014.

In addition to performances by members of the Aragon community, the event also featured special guest Tony Wu, an Iron Chef, who exhibited his prowess in a cooking demonstration that he performed. This involved slicing pork over a balloon, slicing a cucumber blindfolded, performing a “noodle dance” to Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” and hand-pulling 16,000 noodles in two minutes from a long twist of dough, a feat that earned him the world record back in 2011 at the HSBC Chinese Restaurant Awards.

“I’ve been a chef for 32 years. I was trained in China by chefs that worked for the government and for large, famous restaurants. In 1996, I started practicing noodle-pulling. It requires continuous, laborious practice,” Wu says.

Wu invited Aragon students to come up onstage and taught them the noodle-pulling technique. Freshman Isabella Duan, who volunteered to be in the demonstration, says, “I don’t think that I’d have been able to do it anywhere else—it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It was really cool, but it was also kind of embarrassing because I kept on dropping the dough.”

The fundraiser’s student performances were coordinated by choir and orchestra director John Chen.

“In our music class, we work on assigned repertoire, so it was nice to see students perform and audition with pieces that they’re passionate about,” comments Chen.

Junior Reggie Vuna says, “Although it’s for the purpose of raising money, people really get to do what they love and it’s not forced out of the kids, which is why I like it better than other fundraisers.”

Vuna performed in multiple acts, singing both with the women’s chamber choir and in a duo performance accompanied on the piano by junior Tupou Unga.

Her rendition of Rihanna’s “Stay/Diamonds” brought fellow performer and senior Marcy Landes to tears.

“I definitely shed some tears when Reggie [Vuna] sang, and I loved that [the performance] was all a surprise,” says Landes.

Other performances included September’s revival of “Lullabye,” by Billy Joel, which was one of the first songs that the a capella group sang.

“This year we decided to bring back some of the original music that September sang, and this one dates back to five years ago when they performed it at the winter concert, and I absolutely love the piece. I wanted to be able to experience performing that song before I went off,” says senior Scott Bell.

Upperclassmen compare this year’s event to those of previous years, saying that although the change made the experience different from what they were used to, it was still an enjoyable evening.

“[The event] had a very different tone and a was lot slower than in years past, but it was all very good music. I miss being by the Lagoon, but [this year’s event] was still really good,” says senior Nathan Berenstein, who performed with the men’s chamber choir and with the a capella group, September.

“Having a different location makes it incredibly different. Last year it was at the Foster City [Lagoon], and it was really nice to look at the view, but I kind of like that it was at the Aragon theater this year because it just really made it our own, and it had more seating. It kind of made the event focused more on the concert rather than the food and the concert [like in years past],” adds Landes.

Darrick Lam, co-president of the Aragon Asian Parent Group and president of Aragon Music Boosters, conceived the idea of a joint fundraiser when he noticed that individual AAPG fundraisers yielded little participation.

“We wanted to figure out a way for people to participate in an event that was fun, festive, and would raise funds for not only one but multiple groups. As the co-president of the AAPG, the president of Aragon Music Boosters, and the proud parent of a graduating senior, I thought that the three groups could work together and have a bigger event,” comments Lam.

This year, Music From the Heart was originally canceled, but students petitioned Lam to keep the event. “Because of David Martin retiring, we originally thought about not doing it at all, but some students came to me and asked if we could do it, and so I thought about combining Music From the Heart with another performance,” says Lam.

Lam met Chef Tony through a mutual connection. “I take Mandarin classes every Saturday, and my teacher introduced him to us because she was also Chef Tony’s English teacher. She introduced him to all the students, and we had a cooking demonstration, and we were very impressed,” comments Lam.

Regarding the success of the event, Lam says, “Judging from the response and seeing how much participation there was in the demonstration, I think Chef Tony was very entertaining and he knows how to really move the audience. From that perspective, we were successful, but from the perspective of participation, we only had one-third of the anticipated ticket sales—about 200.”

Lam attributes the low turnout to the fact that the event was inconveniently held on a weekday night. “Turnout was disappointing because the event is in the middle of the week, but the thing is, it’s the only day Chef Tony is available; he’s booked for the rest of the year. My hope is that if we do it again next year, more people will come.”

However, Chen points out that it was encouraging to see people’s willingness to be at the event despite the inconvenient time. “The people that showed up there really wanted to be there and really expected quality performances. It was wonderful that we had such a crowd even on a Tuesday night,” says Chen.

Quotes from Mr. Wu were translated from Mandarin Chinese by Emily Shen.