In these extraordinary and uncertain times of COVID-19, with venues closed and live performance at a halt, NiteLife Exchange is reaching out and covering the effect the crisis is having on performing artists.
Versatile vocalist Celia Berk is as at home with opera as she is with jazz and popular song stylings. She studied music and performance in college and subsequently forged a successful career in business while performing and studying intermittently. Several years ago she decided to commit her talent to the performance world and not look back. In 2015 she debuted her inaugural cabaret show, You Can’t Rush Spring (directed by Jeff Harnar and music directed by Alex Rybeck). Berk has since gone on to many successful performances and establishing Gramercy Nightingale Music, as well as issuing two well-received CDs.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Celia Berk (CB) Six Questions:
NLE: You’ve kept your day job (Group Talent Partner, WPP) even as you’ve forged a successful musical career. How has working from home changed your routine and outlook?
CB: I was actually working from home quite a bit, so it’s not unfamiliar to me. I have a work laptop in one room, a personal laptop in another. If anything, it’s given me back the hours every day I had spent commuting. I’m an introvert, and there have been a lot of jokes about this being the moment introverts have prepared for their whole lives. We definitely don’t mind being alone. But it turns out that context really matters. When it’s not your choice it changes the experience entirely. And I desperately miss my in-person time with all my collaborators. But zoom and Facetime are helping ease the separation pangs.
NLE: What’s the most inspirational moment that you’ve experienced in this crisis?
CB: I have found the stories about the teachers staying in touch with their students really touching—the way they organize a parade of cars, while the students stand in front of their houses waving. I have always thought that there is something wrong with a society that values executives more than teachers, caregivers, nurses, artists. Is it possible the current heightened appreciation for them will last beyond this crisis? More personally, I have to give a shout out to my 86 year old mother, who has been a real trouper holed up alone in her upper west side apartment. If she can do it, so can I!
NLE: What best gets you through the day? In terms of music, what uplifts you the most?
CB: A structure gets me through the day. My whole day revolves around Governor Cuomo’s daily press conference. I do something physical every day (thank you to the trustees of Gramercy Park for letting me purchase this year’s key without following regular protocol!). And I do something musical every day. That includes lots of vocal exercises (thank you to my understanding neighbors! I’m determined to come out of this with a high C!!). And I’m settling into my apartment rather than using it as a staging ground for gigs. It turns out I have a frying pan. Who knew? It’s like Brigadoon—things are appearing from the back of my kitchen cabinets once every 100 years!
NLE: What’s your advice to others to help them cope with a life in quarantine?
CB: Keep your sense of humor. And find a way to do something kind or helpful for someone else. A gesture that has felt relatively small to me has had an outsize impact on someone else. That has given me the only real sense of pleasure in the last few weeks. And turn off the TV and step away from the devices. The news is on a loop and most of it is terrible. Turn it off and listen to the silence.
NLE: In these difficult times, have your goals changed? If so, how?
CB: No. If anything, it has brought them into sharper relief. I don’t want to waste this gift of time to really work on some things that I kept pushing to the side.
NLE: What’s the first thing you’re going to do when life returns to “normal?”
CB: I will head straight into the recording studio. I was days away from starting my third album. We are ready to go when the world says “go”!
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