One fairly normal day in the not-so-normal life of Greg Berg.
Wednesday, April 24th ……
5:10 a.m.- Out of bed a little earlier than usual because I need to get to the radio station in plenty of time for some interview prep –
5:45 a.m.- My breakfast – rather than the usual McDonald’s Egg McMuffin – is leftover ham & cheese quiche which Kathy made for dinner the night before. It’s the best quiche she’s ever made- and the recipe, believe it or not, calls for cottage cheese. Even after she mentions that to me, I continue to eat it -and enjoy it!
5:55 a.m.- Having fed Mabel, I take her on her morning walk- and it feels amazing to do so in my shirtsleeves. She is attentive to everything around her, but especially every bird. Her attention will even be drawn to a bird singing up in a tree. We’ve never had a dog that did that!
7:00 a.m.- Having arrived at the station, I am hurriedly finishing up the book “Falter” by Bill McKibbon, one of the first people to raise the alarm for climate change in his book “The End of Nature,” which was published 30 years ago. Later this morning, I get to interview him about “Falter,” and i want to be especially well prepared.
7:55 a.m.- I am in the production room, recording the opening of today’s Morning Show – which is all about the concept of Smart Cities. The opening is with Gateway Technical College president Bryan Albrecht and Racine mayor Cory Mason. They are both incredibly articulate and passionate, so I don’t have to do much more than float a couple of questions and let them do the rest. I am a very big fan of Mayor Mason- He is exceptionally bright but also brings lots of heart and sincerity to his work as mayor. Racine is fortunate indeed to have him as a leader.
8:18 a.m.- Part Two of the Morning Show gets underway live on-the-air …. with two second round winners of the Smart Cities Smart Futures Competition sponsored by FoxConn. This is a competition of innovative ideas to make life better for ordinary people – and especially for ordinary people living and working in cities. My guests are both affiliated with Gateway Technical College: 1) horticulture instructor Kate Field has come up with a proposal that involves reworking old city buildings to utilize hydroponics (an innovative way of growing plants) …. and 2) GTC student Tim Heckel has proposed an app that could sync together information on various means of transportation in the city of Racine, which would allow someone wanted to get from point A to point B to know with some precision how they can get there. This is one of those interviews where I wish I knew a bit more than I do- but on the other hand, a little bit of honest ignorance just prompts the questions. It turns out to be a really fun conversation.
9:05 a.m.- No rest for the weary! As soon as I’m done with the Morning Show, it’s time to pre-record the next day’s Morning Show – a preview of Carthage’s production of “Flora the Red Menace” by Kander & Ebb, the team that gave us “Cabaret” and “Chicago.” This was their first collaboration back in 1965 and the show that served as the vehicle for Liza Minelli’s Broadway debut. I am really ignorant about the show going into the interview, so I’m especially relieved that my guests are so sharp and articulate: Neil Scharnick from the theater faculty (director of the show) and Molly Kempfer and Cassidy Skoroja from the cast of the show. It’s especially impressive how articulate the two students are- and I’m almost always impressed with our music theater students when it comes time for them to talk about the shows that they’re in. It makes me wonder about (and hope that) our opera students could do as well if called upon to talk about -for instance- Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
9:55 a.m. I have just finished up my list of questions for Bill McKibbon, author of “Falter.” I was originally scheduled to interview him a couple of weeks ago, but he had to cancel … because Terry Gross needed to interview him for Fresh Air at the same time he was going to talk to me! Once in a while, I have the pleasure of interviewing someone who has just been on Fresh Air, and I always make a point of trying to come up with a list of completely different questions so anybody who has heard the Fresh Air interview will have reason to listen to my interview as well. It’s a tricky but fun challenge and I think I’ve nailed it.
10:00 a.m.- I dial the phone # for Mr. McKibbon (which is actually the phone # of the hotel in Denver where he is staying) ….. and I get a fast busy signal, which means that the call has not gone through or that there is some sort of problem with the phone line. I hang up and try it again, dialing more slowly…. and I get a fast busy. I hang up, re-check the number, and re-dial with extra care …. and again I get a fast busy. At that point, I whip out my cell phone – dial the number – get through right away – and let him know that there is some sort of technical problem with the station’s phones but that I will do what I can to rectify the problem. He is nice about it and promises to stand by.
10:02-10:20 a.m. – I am trying everything I can think of. I try dialing the number from the phone in master control- to no avail. I try two other phones in the radio station – to no avail. I run across the hall to the president’s office to see if the secretaries have experienced any difficulty with their phones. None at all – and they are not aware of any issue that should be causing this problem. Our radio station technology wiz, Troy McDonald, is helping me …. but he is as flummoxed as I am. It’s Troy who eventually suggests that we try to do the interview by Skype- and Troy ends up making that connection while I look at my list of questions and make a quick mental note of which questions will have to be left out of the mix.
10:20 a.m. – At last, I am rolling with Mr. McGibbon …. who tells me that he has 14 minutes before his next interview – which means that we have to skip over some questions that I dearly wanted to pose to him such as: “Have environmentalists and/or scientists been guilty of exaggeration in the past?” “In a long list of tremendously serious environmental threats, how should be sort out our priorities? What do we attack first- or do all of these threats deserve equal concern?” and “Is there such a thing as scaring the public too much?” All good questions- but there is no time for them. Still, I’m grateful for the 14 minutes I have with this fascinating guest talking about the single most important topic one can talk about today.
11:00 a.m. – I get to Carthage just in time to teach my first voice student of the day, a freshman named Mitchell. He’s one of three really fine freshman voice students of mine – Gabe and Bennett are the others – and they are a complete joy to teach. All three are talented- they genuinely love to sing- all three are bright- and all three are fully open to what I have to offer them. And after the craziness of the previous hour, it is lovely to have 45 minutes to work with this fine young man. It’s especially fun to work with him on an Italian song called “Come raggio di sol” that I worked on as a freshman at Luther. It’s in moments like that when I feel like I am connecting back with my own musical past in some very powerful ways.
12:05 p.m. – It’s time to let our sweet golden retriever Mabel out of her cage for a quick mid-day walk. One of these days we will begin leaving her out of her cage when we go to work. For now, we just do it for fairly brief amounts of time when we have run an errand. Fortunately, she seems to like her cage a lot – and actually, when we leave her out we often come back to find that she has gone into her cage willingly on her own. Anyway, it’s a gorgeous day and I only wish that there were enough time to make it a longer walk.
1:15 p.m. – It’s time to teach Jordan Keller, one of my seniors. Jordan and I actually go back quite a long time. He studied voice with me back when he was in high school (probably during his sophomore year) – and I always appreciated what a lovely natural instrument he had as well as a sincere love of singing. But it’s been during his time at Carthage that Jordan has really come into his own as a singer in a truly spectacular way. Part of it is that he has just physically grown up (he has also tirelessly worked out to the point where he is the most impressive physical specimen of any singer at Carthage right now)- but just as important has been the relentless energy with which he has worked on his singing. Nobody I have taught in the last four years has been a harder worker than Jordan, and the results are very clearly apparent. We spend most of the lesson working on “The Trumpet Shall Sound” – and he is nailing it today.
2:05 – This is usually a free period for me on Wednesdays, but today I am teaching an introductory voice lesson to a young man from Racine named Ben who is thinking about going to Carthage. (He is just a junior, so he wouldn’t start at Carthage until the fall of 2020.) He is an extremely shy, quiet-spoken young man, so I am not expecting too much from this lesson – but he actually possesses quite a lovely voice- and it’s almost as though it is in singing that he is able to open up to the world in a way that is much harder for him to do conversationally. I end up taking out the hymn “Amazing Grace” for him to sing and I am gratified by his responsiveness to my suggestions. I hope I get to be his teacher someday.
2:50 – Opera Time! Our Opera Workshop this semester is doing a project that combines Mozart with operetta. We’re calling the program “From Vienna to Venice.” The first half consists of an array of Mozart opera arias plus an extended sequence from “The Magic Flute” (basically the first five numbers.) The second half features highlights from “The Tales of Hoffmann,” “Die Fledermaus,” “La Periochole,” “The Merry Widow,” and “The Gondoliers.” It has turned out to be a wonderful combination because our singers have to deal with the clarity and purity of Mozart in the first half and the more overtly romantic style of operetta in the second half. Today we are running the first half for the first time in the Recital Hall, after having rehearsed for the first part of the semester in Siebert Chapel. It’s terrific to finally be in the space in which we will be performing this. There are a few bumps along the way, but mostly the students look and sound great. And it’s good that they do, because our performance is coming up on May 5th! (The photo is of Sarah, London and Grace – the Three Ladies from The Magic Flute. The young man lying unconscious behind them is Tamino, played by Cory. They just rescued him from a terrifying giant snake.)
4:15 – I’m giving a voice lesson to Josh Reget, one of my high school students. He’s a great young man who is as good a soccer player as he is a singer – and he also knows his way around the stage very well. We are working on “The Roadside Fire,” the song he will be singing at State Solo & Ensemble in ten days, and he is sounding great. For some reason, a friend of his named Mason came along with him and is sitting in – and at the end of the lesson, I prevail upon him to sing a little bit of “Consider Yourself” from Oliver. (I saw his Artful Dodger a couple of weeks ago and was quite impressed.) It’s a fun little bonus at the end of the day.
6:00 – After a morning of interviews and an afternoon of music, it’s time to deal with our new sump pump. Fortunately, a dear family friend – Jackson Barrow – has offered to install it for us, which is a huge load off of our minds. The hardest part for me was clearing a path through the craziness of our basement so Jackson could get to the sump pump without mountain climbing gear – or a machete – or both. He assures us that he has seen many worse basements in his line of work, but I suspect that ours might still be in his Top Ten. But he doesn’t let on and does the work quickly and cheerfully. It feels good to have this taken care of.
8:15 – Di Giorno Pizza for supper. (We offered to take Jackson to Texas Roadhouse for supper, but he politely declined – and we decided to stay put.) It feels good to play with Mabel and just de-compress. My only work I’m doing this evening (I’ve been trying to cut down) is to poke around iTunes in search of great opera recordings made in 1944-1945. My upcoming column for the Journal of Singing is for a special issue to celebrate the 75th anniversary of NATS, the National Association of Teachers of Singing. My column will be devoted to some of the most important singers who were active at the time that our organization was founded. I’m happy for any excuse to listen to great singers and great singing.
10:15 – It’s not often that I get to climb into bed this early – but it feels great. One more thing to be thankful for at the end of a filled-to-the-brim day.