By Ha Jin Sung ’28, Reporter
While summer break is a time for rest, relaxation, and fun, it is also a time for Choate students to pursue their artistic passions. From play productions and personal projects to art internships and summer programs, four students in Choate’s Arts Concentration Signature Program avidly engaged with their respective disciplines over the summer.
Max Leventon ’25 is a dedicated playwright. “I’ve been writing forever,” he said. While his passion for the arts began with opera, Leventon made the switch to playwriting when he came to Choate, where he developed a love for the behind-the-scenes role playwrights take on. Over the summer, Leventon had one of his own plays, Crank 004, produced in Los Angeles. In addition to this incredible experience, he attended several workshops where he learned and gained inspiration from other creatives.
Leventon’s key takeaway from the summer was to consume as much media as possible. “It’s super undervalued how important it is to watch things, read things — read things that you wouldn’t normally read,” he said. Now, as a senior, Leventon hopes to create a short film or movie with the playwriting skills he has developed over the past few years and showcase his work in this year’s Fringe Festival. “Just starting some projects and going out with a bang,” he concluded.
Katherine Chong ’25 spent her summer pursuing her love for visual art. With an initial passion for oil painting and sketching, she made a move towards a conceptual and mixed media path after arriving at Choate. Now, she focuses on creating collages and sculptures with found materials. Over the summer, Chong worked as an intern in public programs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. “My job there was trying to engage a public audience,” she explained. She helped design programs that aligned with various audiences’ wants and needs.
“A lot of cultural institutions of our day are run on a genuine kind of love and appreciation for the arts,” Chong said, expressing her admiration for those she worked with. Chong’s summer experience has compelled her to continue supporting the advancement of the arts, no matter which direction her future takes her. Along with her internship, Chong also worked on a collage book that analyzed the style of contemporary artist Marcel Duchamp. “I used his signature style of collage to put together this little book,” she said.
Back on campus, Chong is preparing for her senior art show and focusing on how curators utilize museum space, learning how the placement of various art pieces can tell a narrative on its own. “Hopefully, I’ll put together something that I’m really satisfied with and also take from what I’ve seen in very fancy places,” she expressed.
Kristie Lu ’26 is a violinist in the Choate Symphony and attends Juilliard Pre-College. Over the summer, she developed her personal projects. “I mainly focused on preparing recordings for my future portfolio,” Lu said. She takes inspiration from as many artists as possible as she learns violin pieces to add to her repertoire. “I get all their interpretations of the piece so that I can create my own interpretation,” she shared. This year at Choate, Lu plans to take her violin skills to the stage, performing at recitals and working with quartet chamber music.
For Sophie Eliades ’27, her passion for filmmaking took her back to the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan for a second year to participate in a three-week film program. “All of the teachers there are so incredibly qualified,” Eliades remarked. Her hard work culminated in a major project: shooting and editing an original movie. Eliades took on the role of an editor and sound recordist for her piece.
For Eliades, connection and collaboration through art are two significant lessons she took away from her summer at Interlochen. Along with editing and sound recording for the first time, she learned about film history and technical skills, which she plans to bring to her pursuits in film at Choate.
The summer experiences of these four students illustrate the different artistic paths Choate students take during both the school year and the summer.
