Senior of the Week: Jack Liu

Growing up in Dublin, Ohio, a young Jack Liu “hated eating vegetables,” brother Brandon Liu ’17 recalled. “Our parents always got really mad at him for it. But now, he’s really athletic. Now, he runs, like a 17-minute 5K.”

Health is not the only area where Jack has grown. Despite initial apprehensions about coming to Exeter, Liu has become a leader around campus, known by all who ever find themselves at the cross-country trails or the Music Building.

“I was scared of trying something different and of going far away from all my friends and people I know,” Jack said. However, Liu soon found his stride as a musician.

His brother recalled the speed at which Jack could pick up a tune on the bass guitar.  “I watched him start messing around with it, and then I went to school … I came back for the next break … when I heard him playing I Want You Back by the Jackson 5,” B. Liu said. “And it was so nice. It was perfect and super clean.”

Liu has become a leading figure in Exeter’s musical scene, as Co-Head of both the Exeter Association of Rock (EAR) and Exeteras, an all-male a cappella group. Liu remembers being introduced to the latter through Marichi Gupta ’17, then a dormmate in Webster Hall.

For his part, Gupta was impressed by both Jack’s musical skills and his personality. “[Jack] was a funny dude and insanely musically talented,” he recalls. Specifically, Gupta was surprised by Liu’s arrangement of Sunday Candy for the final assembly prep year. “There was some really cool chromatic stuff going on that was just beyond me theoretically. For the next three years, I’d walk around with that in my head and say ‘God, I wonder how Jack did that. Then, I took [Music] Theory III at the University of North Carolina, and I finally understood.’”

Nowadays, Liu takes a leading role in Exeteras rehearsals and makes a special effort to include new singers. “Jack is truly one of the most welcoming people I know at Exeter,” said lower Daniel Han. “I’m a new member to Exeteras this year, but I can say with certainty that it has become one of my favorite activities in the week, and Jack has a lot to do with that.”

Han recalls one night where Jack’s leadership style was on full display. “I have one distinct memory of jamming with him after an Exeteras rehearsal,” Han said. “We were trying to figure out the most effective way to produce a sound with vowel structure and whatnot, but it turned into us just singing and laughing and messing around with bad-sounding stuff on a piano.”

To that end, Jack has used his musical opportunities to find lasting friends, such as senior Beez Dentzer. Dentzer recalled that she and Liu became close through the Concert Choir trip to Coachella Valley in 2017. On that trip, “all of the preps played team building video games on Jack’s laptop in the back of the bus and it really brought everyone together,” she said. “Jack and I still have breakfast together in Elm every day.”

Liu has also thrived as a choir member, in part because of his free spirit: “One time in the music building, a bunch of us were messing around and sight singing some new sheet music,” Dentzer said. “We ended up making a chamber group called MF Leggiero and surprised our choir teacher by caroling at his house.”

Choir Director Kristofer Johnson noted that Liu is an “incredibly motivated and self-motivated musician. As much as any singer that I have taught at Exeter, he has been game to do whatever. He’s an incredible contributor who’s cheerful and excited to always do more music.”

Liu’s running career at Exeter is no less remarkable. B. Liu ’17 underlined how Jack’s dedication and sense of purpose “drives him by osmosis.” “He always works so hard,” he said, “I love training with him because I get just a little bit of that.”

Running has allowed Liu to bond with some of his closest friends. Senior EJ Porras, a fellow cross-country and track runner, recalls his fondest memories of running together. “We were adding on mileage and popping downtown when we started talking about Jack’s immigrant parents. I realized that he was pretty similar to me and that we valued pretty much the same things,” he said. “From then on, I saw this spark in Jack. I wanted to be more like him. He wasn’t afraid to go out and do all the things he wanted to do.”

Porras also stressed how much Jack has grown as a leader on the team. “He’s become more outgoing, and he’s so good at reaching out to people who are younger than him,” he said, “We were chatting one day, and he expressed his love for being a mentor.”

Lower Charles Falivena still remembers, to this day, his first encounters with Liu on the cross country team. “Jack’s been an enduring spirit on the team that I’ve looked up to since day one,” he said. “He was the first guy on the team to introduce himself to me, and it really meant a lot to me … He and I met up relatively soon after and just screwed around in the Round Room—I was on drums, he was on bass. I really felt like I belonged on the team with Jack there.”

Liu’s advisor, History Instructor Alexa Caldwell, echoed this sentiment. In the dorm, “Jack has been challenged to get to know his peers, to do more in the dorm beyond his room,” she said. “Despite his incredibly busy schedule, he has done a wonderful job at making an effort to not only know fellow Webstonians but to be available to them.”

In addition to being a committed singer and runner, Liu’s passion for math is well known to students and teachers alike. Porras noted math as “one of the key pillars that define Jack.”

Notably, his love for Harkness math classes stemmed from rocky beginnings. “Prep winter, on my very first test, I got a 51%. I was like, “Wow, I really go to school at Exeter,” Liu recounted. “It was then when I realized that I could and should get more out of these classes. This method forces you to think not just about getting an answer, but how to articulate your understanding and process in front of the class.”

Caldwell attributes Liu’s success to his independence and discipline: “From the start of his ninth-grade year, Jack established himself as an independent, organized and mature prep. All this is to say that Jack is an independent and self-sufficient kid.”

Liu’s experience as a piano accompanist in the EAR concert his prep year perhaps sums up his growth throughout his Exeter career.  “I’m telling you, man, I missed all the notes and all the chord changes and stuff,” he said. “I may have looked like a fool, but, in the end, it’s just putting yourself out there and doing something you truly love. Simple as that.”