12
THE HARVARD CRIMSON
ARTS
APRIL 21, 2023
CULTURE BY ANYA L. HENRY CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
I
n the unfortunate event that Claire Saffitz ’09 — renowned pastry chef, author, and YouTube personality behind “Dessert Person” — could only enjoy one food for the rest of her life, she would go back to the basics. “Probably bread and butter,” Saffitz said in an interview with The Crimson. “Every time they have, like, good butter on homemade bread or something like that, I just am convinced it’s the best thing I’d ever eat. And I don’t think I would ever get tired of it.” Since Saffitz’s time at Harvard, much has changed — Adams House, her former residence hall, is undergoing renovations, Café Pamplona has long since closed its doors, and STEM students find themselves walking over the bridge to Allston for course meetings. Perhaps surprisingly though, even more has stayed just the same. From dinners with her sophomore seminar leader Tim at local restaurant Daedalus to various courses with English professor Glenda R. Carpio, Saffitz’s Harvard bears a remarkable resemblance to the one loved by current students. “I had so many good memories of my time at Harvard and I loved, I loved, living in Cambridge. I just loved the kind of atmosphere and the amount of, a sort of like, cultural opportunities there,” Saffitz said. “I regret that I actually didn’t take advantage of it more,” Saffitz finished. Despite her regrets, Saffitz is — in many respects — a Harvard success story. As a decorated pastry chef, author of two baking books (“Dessert Person” and “What’s for Dessert”), and well-known YouTube personality of Bon Appétit “Gourmet Makes” fame, Saffitz represents the joyful accomplishments that can come from pursuing the arguably unconventional path. “I felt like at Harvard, at least at a time when I was a student, there were sort of set tracks and I didn’t really fit into any of them,” Saffitz said. When asked about her career prospects while in college, Saffitz said that she was interested in journalism, which presented some challenges: “I remember just not really feeling like I had a lot of support or like there was just sort of a kind of built in support system for people that wanted to pursue that like there was for people who wanted to go into finance or medicine or law.” For students aspiring to medical school, graduate degree pro-
Claire J. Saffitz ’09 on Bread, Butter, and the Roads Less Traveled
COURTESY OF EMMA FISHMAN grams, or the stereotypical Harvard-to-NewYork-consultant pipeline, there are often more extensively curated and visible career resources available. But for Saffitz, a Humanities concentrator whose only post-graduate North Star appeared to be the desire to do “something involving writing and literature,” the future was a bit blurrier. Like many prospective graduates, “I didn’t really know what I wanted to be,” Saffitz said. “There’s so many more career paths out there than is recognized by undergraduate
students and that was a really important thing for me to realize,” she explained. “I had been out of undergrad for a couple of years and I just remember thinking to myself, like, the only thing I really seem to have a sustained intense interest in is cooking and baking.” “And I thought to myself, if I want to pursue this, I should probably explore it now.” Going on to study at both École Grégoire-Ferrandi, a French culinary and trade school, and McGill University, where
she earned a master’s degree in History, Saffitz discovered ways to combine her sustained interest in academics with food. That being said, she acknowledges that turning one’s passion into their profession is not always sunshine and rainbows. The adage “Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” was clearly not created in the 21st century. “It’s not necessarily always a healthy thing to tell people that, like, you have to find happiness in your work or that has to be the source
of your happiness,” Saffitz said. “My first boss said something to me very, very true. She said, if it wasn’t work, they wouldn’t pay you.” “There’s deadlines and there’s pressure, and not every part of it is creative — like not 100 percent of what I do is being in the kitchen, you know, creating a recipe — not even close.” “There’s a lot more that goes into work that is undoubtedly work. But if that thing can be at the core of what you do, then I think that’s great.” Looking back on her career, more than a decade after she was one of countless black caps lining the Yard for Harvard Commencement, Saffitz seems to have made the right choice. “I find it very reassuring that, you know, after 10 years of having this be my career, I still love it just as much now as I did, you know, before I even sort of went to culinary school,” Saffitz said, “That passion has not diminished.” In fact, it has transformed: While she describes herself as “a bit of a social media skeptic,” her YouTube channel and Patreon allow her to engage meaningfully with audiences everywhere. By merging recipe creation with digital media, Saffitz can visually demonstrate techniques which may be restrained by print publication. “I think teaching is what I’ve become most passionate about. You know, as far as my work, so I love being able to teach and empower homemakers through videos,” Saffitz said. For undergraduates feeling anxious or overwhelmed by the infinite number of choices post-graduate life offers — or for those getting lost in the weeds as another spring semester breezes by — Saffitz stresses the importance of slowing down. “The best advice that I could give someone at this stage is probably the advice that I would give myself — which is to relax a little bit, you know? You don’t have to have it all figured out,” Saffitz said. “It’s easy to look at someone else and think that they have it all figured out. But I think everyone’s pretty much at the same point, which is like, figuring it out as they go.” From her experience, “A lot of it made sense only in hindsight.” In weaving through culinary school, academia, and YouTube stardom, Saffitz said, she kept coming back to one question: “Am I happy doing this right now?” “And if the answer was yes, then I would continue to do it.” anya.henry@thecrimson.com
Annika Huprikar on Film Scoring and Following Passions BY EMMA Y. MIAO CONTRIBUTING WRITER
For Annika Huprikar ’24, music feels like a second language. A junior in the Harvard-Berklee College of Music five-year dual degree program, Huprikrar is pursuing a BA in Computer Science from Harvard College as well as a Master’s of Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music. Her energy and passion for music were striking as Huprikar remarked on her experience in her dual degree, and how she splits up her time. “I usually try and take half of my coursework in CS every semester,” she said. “Honestly ideally, I would like to really pursue music more than CS; I know that by myself.” Pursuing an EPS secondary, which takes up one class slot a semester, Huprikar explores liberally with her one remaining class slot, having taken courses in art history, government, and comparative literature. In addition, she takes two classes in film scoring at Berklee each semester, learning among others how to write for Brass or score a video game. With a complete studio setup in her dorm room, including a fulllength 88-key MIDI controller and two 5’’ KRK Rokit Studio speakers, as well as an audio interface and a mic, Huprikar can experiment with sequencing and mixing at any time of day. The setup is symbolic of how comfortable and
ingrained music is within her everyday life. “The great thing about these projects at Berklee is that they feel less like homework and more like you’re working on a continuous thing,” she said. “It’s really, really fun.” Huprikar started playing piano at the age of six. Classically trained, she considered piano to be “her sport.” In high school, Huprikar entered the competition circuit as well as discovered the joy of composing. After noticing patterns in the classical scores she’d be playing growing up, Huprikar endeavored to create her own, more modern-leaning compositions. In high school, she wrote a violin, cello, piano trio, then expanded to orchestral pieces. A “mainly self-taught” scorer and conductor, she learned to use Sibelius and Dorico to notate her compositions, and would conduct student groups playing her work. Nearing the end of high school, Huprikar realized that music production, and specifically film scoring, which brought together her fascination with film and music, piqued her interest more than pure piano performance. She loved watching movies, and was specifically entranced by Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack in “The Dark Knight Rises”: “it has such grit to the score,” she stated. Inspired by Zimmer, she realized that she could marry her interests in film and music and started paving her own path in the film scor-
ing world. Huprikar’s established practice is scoring silent scenes: movie sequences stripped of sound. Her mentors — one in LA and one in New York — would give her scenes without music from films that have already been scored. The exercise, then, would be to score the scene in an original way, to push her creative boundaries. “The test,” Huprikar said, is to really get creative, think about things in a critical way; what are you seeing visually and how do you then take that and transform
“The Fortunates,” and The Harvard Undergraduate Drummers. She had been asked to score some student projects. She makes audio backings for friends’ short films, and looks forward to upcoming senior theses where she will likely have the opportunity to collaborate with peers in the TDM or AFVS departments. Originally from Chicago, Huprikar loves musicals, often watching them while growing up with her parents and friends. To this end, Hurpikar tried composing with lyrics for the 2021 First-
“
I can do automations of things that I need to be done. But when it comes to the actual creative compositions idea, I want that to come from me.
Annika Huprikar ’24
it into sound? musical narrative? She chose the Harvard-Berklee Dual Degree Program because she felt that it offered direction beyond classical performance or theory, which differed from that offered at traditional music departments — even Harvard’s very own. “I’m trying to do as much as I can out of class.” To that end, Huprikar has been involved in the First-Year Musical,
Year Musical, where she worked with casted performers to personalize her score to the vocal ranges of the actors themselves after having worked one-on-one with them. Although she realized she was not as interested in composing for musical theater or working with lyrics, she still appreciated the experience. “Writing with lyrics in mind versus instrumental makes it like
a different battle. It’s challenging.” An avid and relentless explorer even within the music industry, Huprikar keeps her eyes set ahead and upwards. Now, she stays busy with Harvard and Berklee assignments, scoring competitions, and independent projects within and outside of the Harvard ecosystem. Most recently, her work was recorded, then premiered alongside seven other pieces at Sanders Theatre by Ensemble Veritas, a professional choir. “It was like a masterclass rehearsal recording session.” When asked about whether she would pursue music full-time, Huprikar was enthusiastic. “I mean, every industry has its uncertainties. But I think there’s no mistake or misunderstanding that Fine Art and Music is a very risky, unstable industry. But I love music so much that I’m not averse to taking that path,” she said. To that end, she sees her studies in CS as supplement to her ultimate goal of music. Studying technology, to her, has given her a path to understanding how to understand and conceptualize abstract backend processes in relation to music. Understanding signal processing and how to apply effects — distortion, for instance — on different audio tracks to create the desired sonic effect on a theoretical, conceptual level allows her to get closer with music and interact with it through a different lens. “It makes me more open minded and more willing to actual-
ly learn the technological knowhow to work in music.” Even though artificial intelligence presents Huprikar with a unique opportunity to merge her academic interests in Computer Science and Music, she shared that she never intended to study their interaction. “I believe in technology corrupting the authenticity of the human creative process,” she said. “I can do automations of things that I need to be done. But when it comes to the actual creative compositions idea, I want that to come from me.” Huprikar intends to graduate Harvard College with a degree in Computer Science in 2024 and complete her Masters in Film Scoring from Berklee in 2025. Afterwards, her dream is to live in New York or L.A. scoring films, attending festivals, and expanding the scale of her musical explorations.
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