ISKL Alumni hosts Future Ready: Alumni Black Box Conversations - The Arts
For students or alumni hoping to pursue a career in the Arts, how interesting would it be to sit down with not just one but four incredibly talented creatives from the arts industry?
T
hat is exactly what happened at the second episode of ‘Future Ready: Alumni Black
Box Conversations – The Arts’ organized by the International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL) on April 6, 2021 when an all-ISKL alumni ensemble encompassing opera diva, Kirstin Chavez (Class of 1987), fi lmmaker Tony Pietra Arjuna (Class of 1996), artist Haff endi Anuar (Class of 2004), and fi lm composer Varqa Buehrer (Class of 2003) discussed their career paths with (ISKL) Alumni host, Hezril Asyraaf, (Class of 2013). Lynette Macdonald, ISKL’s
Director of Development and Alumni Engagement and organizer for the Black Box series, says, “So many ISKL alumni have forged amazingly successful careers in The Arts, so it was a natural choice for our panel this time. We knew it would be an entertaining discussion with lots of interesting perspectives.” Varqa has had a phenomenal year in which the fi lm he scored music for, ‘Better Days,’ has won numerous awards at
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the Hong Kong Film and Golden Rooster Awards. The fi lm is now nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 2021 Academy Awards. Additionally, some of Varqa's compositions are found on the streaming series ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ and various advertisements. Host Hezril, a Presenter/Producer of ‘The Bigger Picture’ at Malaysia's business radio station, BFM89.9, started off the program by asking Varqa whether his time at ISKL was infl uential in sparking his creative interests.
IMPORTANCE OF EARLY EXPOSURE Varqa shared, “When I fi rst went to ISKL, I was immediately exposed to a professional setting. The school had a great stage, fantastic lighting, professional equipment, and the faculty knew what to do with it.” Varqa says that it was an eye-opening experience, and it encouraged him to want to continue with the Arts. “I do music composing for the fi lm industry now, but when I was at ISKL, I was
exposed to the orchestra. It was nice to see people interested in the same fi eld as I was and interact with them and learn from them,” he says. Varqa shares that he got his jobs as a matter of luck and advised students to work hard and be humble. “Luck is a good component in the Arts – moving every two years to a new country has helped me to adapt and connect with people.” Haff endi, currently based in
Oxford, in the United Kingdom, is an artist whose work encompasses many media types, drawing on his Malaysian cultural heritage. Having studied at the Rhode Island School of Design in the USA, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, and most recently at the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford, he recently won the prestigious Vivien Leigh Prize from the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, England last year. Haff endi says, “I remember an incident at ISKL’s High School Art studio. At that time, for an Asian family, it was very respectable to be an architect.
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