Oral History Interview with Catherine Berger-Dujmovic

This oral history is provided free by the Archives of the Interlochen Center for the Arts (ARTICA). It has been accepted for inclusion in Interlochen’s audio archive by an authorized administrator of Interlochen Center for the Arts. For more information, please contact archives@interlochen.org.

00:00:00    BRAD BAILEY
Today is June 26th, 2024. This is an oral history interview with:

00:00:06    CATHERINE BERGER
Catherine Berger.

00:00:07    BRAD BAILEY
Conducted by Brad Bailey on the campus of Interlochen Center for the Arts. For full disclosure, this is a zoom interview with Brad Bailey here in Interlochen, Michigan. And Catherine, where are you?

00:00:17    CATHERINE BERGER
I am in Redwood City, California.

00:00:19    BRAD BAILEY
Wonderful. Thank you. Can you tell me your name and where you're from?

00:00:23    CATHERINE BERGER
My name is Catherine Berger. I am originally from Downers Grove, Illinois.

00:00:27    BRAD BAILEY
Great. And so what was your childhood like growing up in Downers Grove?

00:00:31    CATHERINE BERGER
So Downers Grove is a kind of fairly typical Chicago suburb. It's kind of a middle class suburb, probably around 30 miles outside of the city, and I attended public school the entire time. The time was actually a very white neighborhood, so there wasn't a lot of ethnic diversity, which I know actually bothered my parents quite a bit because they would have liked more. But I was pretty active in- I played violin and also sang all through my grade school and on into high school years. And my parents made an effort to get us as much diversity as they could, actually. Especially through the arts. So we were able to have a little bit more of a breadth of experiences.

00:01:08    BRAD BAILEY
And so tell me how music was a part of your childhood?

00:01:11    CATHERINE BERGER
So I was a Suzuki kid, and I started playing violin at the age of four, and it had a few different places that I took lessons. Originally actually at Wheaton College, from about the ages of 4 to 6, and then had another teacher through second grade. And then I started with a teacher named Ed Kreitman, who actually just retired. Unfortunately, I missed his retirement celebration because I had a conflict and could not go back to Chicago for it. And he was just getting going in his career. And he started a school in Western Springs, Illinois, the Western Springs School of Talent Education, and I studied with him into high school. And then I kind of was a little bit more advanced than what he could provide. And he had another teacher called Tom Weymouth come in, who was a friend of his who moved down from Canada, actually. And Tom was a phenomenal teacher and also really good with teenagers. You know, there's some personalities that are better with younger kids and better with older kids. And Tom was my teacher towards the end of high school. And during that time I also sang. I have no formal singing training, but I had a decent voice, so I was selected for a choir in grade school in the public school district that was kind of taken- they took kids from all the different schools in the district. There were like ten grade schools, and then I just kept singing also in high school. And then, as you know, in college as well, I was in the Yale Glee Club.

00:02:29    BRAD BAILEY
So from high school you went to Yale University, which is where we met. And so tell me about your musical experience at Yale.

00:02:36    CATHERINE BERGER
So musical experience at Yale. I auditioned for Freshman Chorus and got in, which was great because that was the freshman chorus and then subsequently into Yale Glee Club were basically my most amazing experiences in college and still have some amazing friends from that time. I also played violin in a chamber orchestra, so not in the Yale Symphony, but I joined a chamber orchestra, so it was a little bit less intense and I played in various pit orchestras as well. So I was a member of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and I was one of their violinists, and I would occasionally be asked to play for kind of informal things and some graduate student projects as well.

00:03:11    BRAD BAILEY
When did you initially hear and learn about Interlochen?

00:03:14    CATHERINE BERGER
Yeah, that's actually I was thinking about that.. in high school, I was in the All-State orchestra, which was a pretty big deal. You had to audition for it and then got selected. And my recollection is, I was down in Peoria for the All-State orchestra thing, which was probably in January of my... must have been my junior year of high school. And, you know, pre-Internet, it was a lot harder to hear about things. And I met this random person, and he spent the previous summer at Interlochen and was just raving about the experience. And I thought, well, this is pretty cool. And so, somehow I managed to get information and read up on it and was like, well, I really want to try to go to this camp. This sounds amazing. So that's how I heard about it, and I didn't know anybody else who'd been there. I didn't know anybody well who'd been there at all. It was kind of a random connection, actually. It had never really occurred to me. I used to go to summer camp, but I never really went to like all summer sleepaway camp, so that was a new thing, but it just sounded like such a phenomenal experience. And interestingly enough, my parents said, "Well, you know, that's fine if you get in, but we can't pay for it." So I had to raise a couple thousand dollars to pay for it. And so I went around to all the different banks and organizations in town, and I basically begged for money, and I got $50 here and $100 there, and I managed to put the money together and pay for it.

00:04:29    BRAD BAILEY
Wow. And so you were saying that this is the first time you had ever left home, essentially?

00:04:34    CATHERINE BERGER
I'd been to like a, you know, two week sleepaway Girl Scout camp in Wisconsin, but I'd never spent the entire summer somewhere. You know, I was 16 and I turned 17 that summer. So for me to go away for a full two months was a really amazing experience.

00:04:48    BRAD BAILEY
Wow. And how will your parents, even though you mentioned that they couldn't afford the experience, how were they with regard to other types of support for the experience?

00:04:55    CATHERINE BERGER
Oh, great. Yeah, they thought it was a great experience. And of course, you know, they thought it would look good on my college applications, so.

00:05:03    BRAD BAILEY
So you got in. And so what was your instrument going into Interlochen again?

00:05:07    CATHERINE BERGER
So violin. So I, I don't know if they still call it that. It was called a violin major.

00:05:12    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. That was my question. Yeah. Violin major. Okay, great.

00:05:14    CATHERINE BERGER
Violin major.

00:05:15    BRAD BAILEY
So, tell me about your first experience when you first got to Interlochen, and what were your thoughts about it? And just tell me about that. If you could take us back. And what year again was that?

00:05:24    CATHERINE BERGER
It was 1989, summer. Yeah. Well, so first of all, the really fun thing was that they bussed us from Chicago. So I arrived early that morning with my mom at the parking lot of the Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park, and there was a bus, and we all hopped on the bus and took this, I mean, it felt like eight hours. I don't know how long the trip actually took, you know, going probably 45 to 50 miles an hour. And those roads aren't all highways, as you probably know. At least they weren't then. Yeah, we were all bussed up and I got to know some kids on the bus who'd flown into Chicago from wherever and were taking the bus up. I remember arriving in the parking lot and just thinking, it was a spectacular- It was just gorgeous, with all the trees, and it smelled amazing. And I don't remember exactly what happened that day. I do remember the next day or two, I had auditions and got placed in the orchestra, and I got to pick classes. So like, I actually learned how to play flute. I took beginning band and learned how to play the flute, which is something I really wanted to do. Got my cabin and I had a wonderful cabin, I can't remember. There were maybe 14-15 girls in it all my age and I loved my cabin. It was really, really nice people from all over the country and one girl from Canada. So that's really my initial memories of it. And the lake was beautiful. And I remember the craft hut and I still have a bracelet I made. So yeah, the first few days were overwhelming in some sense, but they were also it was like you had all these people that were in the exact same boat. Most people- a couple girls in my cabin knew each other and had known each other for several years and kept going to camp together, and they were in the musical theater group, but most of us actually didn't- it was all new for most of us, and that was a great bonding experience.

00:07:09    BRAD BAILEY
And so tell me about your musical- because you mentioned in high school you'd gotten one teacher where you felt you had to grow from someone else, you know. And then once you got to Interlochen, what was your musical sort of trajectory like then from where you were in high school? I would assume it was a bridge almost between high school and college. But can you talk to me about your own musical growth throughout that period and what you learned here?

00:07:32    CATHERINE BERGER
I think one of the best things about Interlochen was it really kind of opened my eyes to music that I hadn't been exposed to.. Really, the music I had been involved in was Suzuki Music, and it's coming out of the Suzuki books, and I hadn't really been exposed to other types of music. My parents didn't play music in the house. I had no exposure. I didn't know about different, even different styles of music in the 80s, which is a little bit crazy when you think about with Spotify and all the other ways kids can learn about all these different artists. And today I really had very little knowledge. We didn't have MTV, which is a really big deal. We didn't have cable. So it was very eye opening to me to be able to go to all these performances of all these various types of music and different artists. It was extremely- it really opened my viewpoint to like what performing can be and what music can be. I really envy kids now that can go on YouTube and TikTok and whatnot and see all these different styles of performing and hear all these different varieties of music that we just couldn't access at that time. I'm sure they existed, but you couldn't access them. Interlochen opened that door for me.

00:08:37    BRAD BAILEY
It helped open that door. Okay, great. And so how about your skill set- your skill set? Did you felt it improved during that period? Talk to me about like your skill set in terms of like your playing and such with the violin and how that like to become a better musician.

00:08:51    CATHERINE BERGER
So it made me want to practice more. But I will tell you that one thing I- was very much driven home that summer is that I was solidly mediocre. Once you got to these highly competitive orchestras, I was in the higher level orchestra. At the time, I think it was called World Youth Symphony Orchestra. I'm not sure what it's called now, but I was in the very back of it, which meant that out of all the high school violinists, I was somewhere in the middle. And that was fine. Like, I was okay with that, but it was like seeing people my own age and even younger who were just absolutely spectacular musicians. That's obviously a ton of hard work, but there's also a lot of innate talent that I just didn't have. And that was fine. It was like, but it was eye opening to that extent. It made me want to- It made it it really kind of drove home that, okay, like you're not going to be a professional performer. That's impossible. But you can still participate and have music be an important part of your life. And, you know, for me, I kind of morphed that into being comfortable, being part of the group.

00:09:55    BRAD BAILEY
So tell me a bit more about that, because, you know, a lot of people do come here and want to be, you know, a famous musician and things like that, which is fine. But other people come here because, again, they do want music as a part of their lives in many different ways. So can you tell me then how did you go with that realization? Because you still had a good- another year at high school. And so how did that, like, sort of shape your musical journey from there until until you got to Yale, which, what I remember was a very profound and intense and wonderful music sort of background. So talk to me about that.

00:10:28    CATHERINE BERGER
So I first of all, gave myself a huge challenge my senior year of high school. So one of the formative experiences I had at Interlochen was playing in the concert, and Itzhak Perlman was our soloist. Oh my God, it was amazing. So, you know, he's out and he's performing in his chair since he's disabled from what he had polio and he's a gentleman. And he played the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor, and which is still one of my favorite pieces. So I have a whole nother story about the performance with Itzhak Perlman, which will live in my mind forever. But- but just for the first part of the question, I decided that I was going to learn that symphony. I was going to learn that that sorry, that the violin solo for that whole thing. And that became my challenge that year. And I actually performed it with my high school orchestra at the end of the year because the seniors got, thank you, got to perform a solo. So that was the one I chose. And for me, that was just a huge crowning achievement of my life. And I still love that piece of music. So I was proud that I felt that I had the potential to really get amazingly good at this piece. And I believe there's actually a videotape of it somewhere. I don't know where it is. Somebody made a videotape by some, you know, 1989, 1990 quality with their video camera. And then, yeah, it really just made me realize that I can continue to be part of a really high quality group as a participant. I remember this one girl who I think her name was Louise. I am pretty sure, and I remember I would chat with her and she was an amazing violinist. And I mean, violinists are kind of.. can often be divas and they're like the sopranos of the string world. But she was very humble. But she told me that her goal was to be the first female concert mistress of a major symphony orchestra. And I was like, wow, that's incredible. I don't know her last name. I don't know whatever- where her life led her. Certainly don't know if that goal was achieved, but it was pretty amazing to me to see someone my own age with a goal that I felt was just so high, like such a high caliber, that they were trying to achieve.

00:12:34    BRAD BAILEY
And what was her first name again, for the record.

00:12:37    CATHERINE BERGER
I believe it was Louise, but I really am not 100% sure.

00:12:40    BRAD BAILEY
1989 okay, perfect. Yeah, I guess those are things we can look up. Those are things we can look up. But, you know, I consider you quite accomplished in many, many, many, many, many ways. And so when you got to Yale, how did you sort of use your Interlochen experience to really shape your musical experience in college.

00:12:57    CATHERINE BERGER
Well, you know what? It gave me confidence to try a lot of things, to just say, hey, you need a violinist? I can do that. Oh, you need you need a singer to be part of your ensemble for this, you know, whatever, for this master's degree program? Sure. Sign me up. You know, and I'm not sure I would have had that confidence before. It just gave me more of a drive to try to be part of something and to realize, like, oh, I could do this. Oh, I can do this.

00:13:22    BRAD BAILEY
And so how do you think it then impacts your experience at Interlochen? Impacted your experience after Yale, whether it be medical school and in your career?

00:13:32    CATHERINE BERGER
So I think it also ties back into self-confidence that, like you, was fortunate to be able to go to a school like Yale. And then I went to medical school at University of Chicago, surrounded by incredibly bright people at both of these places. And then I did my residency at one of the Harvard hospitals. So, again, as you know, you're just among all of these incredibly smart, accomplished, can be very intimidating people, but the Interlochen experience again helped me realize, like, I'm on a level playing field with these people and I can feel confident about my own skill set and also my own brain and intellectual capabilities.

00:14:09    BRAD BAILEY
And so tell me about your career now. You're in California, and tell me a bit about- you're in the, in the medical field. So I don't want to speak for you. So can you tell me what what you do now.

00:14:18    CATHERINE BERGER
So I am an obstetrician gynecologist, but I, at this point, and for the last 11, 12 years, I've been working only on the inpatient side. I'm what's called a hospitalist. So I work in shifts. So we do 12 hour shifts, and I cover labor and delivery, emergencies, postpartum- sorry, the emergency room postpartum, and some minor surgeries as well. And I work with a really wonderful collaborative team. We have a four year residency program, so I'm a very involved in teaching our residents. And we also have medical students from Stanford. So we teach the medical students. And, you know, it's almost like being part of a huge choir and an orchestra. Everybody has their part and everybody knows their part, and it works well together when there's a problem. You know, we all figure out how to fix it.

00:15:02    BRAD BAILEY
Absolutely, absolutely. And so- so then how does, you know, and I don't- and tell me if you think it's a stretch or not. But how does then music impact your life now? You know, not just with your- your job now, but just in your life now in different ways.

00:15:15    CATHERINE BERGER
Mhm. You know, I don't I'm not doing any music at this point in time. I also have three teenagers and, you know, work. So I haven't really been able to do anything for myself musically. I do go back to the Yale Glee Club reunions every five years, I have participated a couple of Yale Alumni Chorus events, which have been very fun, and I've met amazing people, you know, alumni, which is it's always fun because as you know, we have this- you have a bond with almost any alumni you meet. You're immediately like, oh, what college were you? What year were you? Oh, did you know, so and so. And you can always, almost always figure out something, some kind of connection. So one of the things that's been really great for me, though, is getting two of my three kids are pretty musical. So my 15-year-old son has been singing in Ragazzi Boys Chorus, which is located here, down here on the Peninsula since first grade, I think. And he's actually in Australia right now on a tour with his chorus. And that's just amazing. And then my daughter sings in what's called Peninsula Girls Chorus. So she's actually going to be going on tour next summer to New York City. So my kids have been involved in music and gotten to experience some of the joys and experiences you can get from being involved in music at a young age. And both of them have very, very good voices. They both did piano for a few years, kind of fizzled out. Our teacher moved away way right at the beginning of Covid. And, you know, that was four years ago, and I haven't ever found another teacher because, you know, it was kind of life. Life got in the way.

00:16:39    BRAD BAILEY
Understood. You know, pandemic. Absolutely.

00:16:43    CATHERINE BERGER
But they had a few years of piano each, which I think is a really good foundation.

00:16:47    BRAD BAILEY
No, I saw the picture of you at the airport with- that was like.. and you could see the beaming pride in your eyes, too, like there was a there's a pride there. I was always thinking- it was almost like another circle continuing of just that whole journey, so to speak. And I was like, she must be really proud right now. That's cool.

00:17:05    CATHERINE BERGER
Yeah. And I know, you know, a couple times that when I've sat in on my- if I was chaperoning, you know, a dress rehearsal or something, just sitting there in the audience watching these kids up on stage, rehearsing, getting ready for their concerts and practicing, you know, walking in and walking off and all those- the behind the scenes stuff that you have to do when you're part of a big group, you always have to- there's so much, so many things you practice that are just logistical and have nothing to do with the actual singing or playing and just watching them go through all of this and starting and stopping and working on their cues. And and I was thinking, gosh, my mom did this for, you know, my whole childhood. Really. I didn't drive until I was a senior in high school. And so she was literally there through my junior year of high school, starting from the age of 4 until 17, sitting in everything. And now it's my turn. So that's pretty amazing.

00:17:56    BRAD BAILEY
Wow. So yeah, that is a curious thing. How do you feel about that now that you see what she did over all those years, you know, to sort of support you through that musical journey.

00:18:07    CATHERINE BERGER
And also with violin, which is not which is not inexpensive. I mean, lessons are very expensive. And my instrument that my parents bought me, they bought me a absolutely spectacular violin that I treasure when I was a junior in high school. Until then, I'd actually been playing on this old kind of hand-me-down that wasn't a particularly high quality, but it's what we had. And so they were willing to buy this instrument for me, which I, you know, I'm sure I appreciated at the time. But, you know, when you're 16 or 17, you don't necessarily know how to express that. I mean, I was- helps me really understand the sacrifices in both time, but also, sorry, both money, but also especially time that they made for my music experiences and development. I remember my dad would, when I played in the All-State Orchestra three years in a row, he would actually drive down to Peoria, which is about, I don't know, three hours from our house and come to the final concerts. And that's a full day thing, because you've got this long drive and you've got to sit through a concert. My, you know, my dad was supportive, but I wouldn't say he's particularly musical. And I think he felt that it was valuable, but he was probably a little bored. But he would do that to show his support. It was a really nice thing. Parents showing up for things is so valuable to children, no matter what they're doing. It's just seeing their parent there in the audience or, you know, as a spectator in a sports game or wherever is such an important thing for kids to see from their family.

00:19:33    BRAD BAILEY
And so I remember that you mentioned the Itzhak Perlman moment. If you wanted to. I didn't want to keep you on too long this evening, but if you wanted to, I would love to hear that story.

00:19:42    CATHERINE BERGER
He's just obviously an amazing performer and, you know, world famous and just such a gentleman and very kind and just was happily talking to people and having casual conversations. But during the performance, one of his strings broke. And that happens. So typically when you're a part of an orchestra, somebody, you know, you usually have a spare set of strings kind of on the stand so you can stop and change your string quickly. And it's happened to me before. So when the soloist is doing that, they turn, they hand their instrument to the concertmaster and take the concertmaster's violin, and they just keep going. So, you know, there might be a break, but it's a very brief break. And they hop right in, pop right back in. So it's fairly seamless. The concertmaster then takes the instrument and passes it to the next person, and their job is literally to restring. And then at a good time, the violins get exchanged back. So it's kind of like change, change, then go back. So Perlman's playing a Stradivarius, which is an instrument that everybody dreams of touching at some point in time, let alone playing in a concert- it's called Kresge? The main-?

00:20:49    BRAD BAILEY
Yes. Kresge. Yes. Kresge Auditorium. Yeah.

00:20:51    CATHERINE BERGER
Which is an amazing performance space. So, you know, you're kind of like- you dream of getting to play a Stradivarius ever, let alone in a performance arena as beautiful as that. So the concertmaster passes it back, and then the Stradivarius gets the string changed. It gets passed back to the concertmaster, and Perlman's not ready to trade because he's in the middle of some, you know, crazy Mendelssohn violin part. And so concertmaster starts playing the Stradivarius, and, you know, it does get exchanged back, but. And I don't know who the concertmaster was, and I'm sure this person was amazingly excited by it, but the rest of us were like, you know, just an incredible experience. And I have such a distinct memory of that.

00:21:34    BRAD BAILEY
Wow. I mean, with such a well-known figure, but also having a moment that actually is a rare moment in that regard. So. Wow. That's great.

00:21:43    CATHERINE BERGER
I just want to say there was one other performance and this was the winner of the.. it'll come to me, it's a huge piano competition and it starts with an A. And anyway, the winner was at Interlochen giving a performance and had three encores. Three. And I was in the audience for that one. And I just remember. And the encores went on for something like 45 minutes.

00:22:07    BRAD BAILEY
45 minutes?

00:22:08    CATHERINE BERGER
Right. And that's part of Interlochen is it went on forever because he didn't just come out and play a two minute thing. He came out and played like a whole piano-long thing, and then he went offstage and it's just a standing ovation. And it goes on and on and on and on. And then he comes back out and does another one, and it goes on and on. And that is something that Interlochen that it's okay to do that, you know, you go sometimes- you remember when I lived in Boston and I would go see the Boston Symphony and, you know, they'd be getting their round of applause at the end and people would start leaving. And I was like, what? This isn't over! Where's everybody going? These people are still on stage like this- And, you know, then they would sit down to do some kind of maybe a little encore. And people are still, like filing out of the auditorium, and I would think that's so rude. Like, I want to hear what they're doing. And of course I my seats because I don't have any money, my seats are always all the way in the back. So people are blocking my view. Yeah.

00:22:58    BRAD BAILEY
So who was your most memorable person while you were at Interlochen?

00:23:03    CATHERINE BERGER
So I had a cabin mate whose name was Liz. Liz was from Pennsylvania, I think, and we spent a lot of time together. She became a good friend. Sadly, you know, given that it was the era it was, and we didn't have email or, you know, any way to keep in touch with anybody easily beyond writing letters and making, you know, you didn't really make phone calls because it was so expensive to make long distance phone calls. I do know she went to Carnegie Mellon. Liz, I don't even remember what her major was, but we spent a lot of time together. Kind of like in the afternoons after rehearsals were over and on the weekends, and she and I used to sign up to go, you know, weekends there were on Sunday and Monday. At the time, I don't-

00:23:41    BRAD BAILEY
They still- they still- they're on Monday and Tuesday. Well, Monday and Tuesday. Yeah, but Monday and Tuesday here? Yes. Yeah.

00:23:47    CATHERINE BERGER
One of the people who sign up with me to go out of the camp to go to- they would take us on these beach trips and you can sign up for. And I liked that because it was nice to get away a little bit. So she and I would do that together and we'd eat a lot of meals together. And she was just a lovely person. And that friendship with her was was a really nice aspect of that summer. And I think had it been a different era, we probably would still be in touch.

00:24:08    BRAD BAILEY
Well, hopefully we can see what we can do with finding her as well. We have our ways. So, Liz, what? Give us as much information as you can possibly give.

00:24:17    CATHERINE BERGER
She was tall. She was really pretty. She had a really wonderful smile. She had, like, kind of medium brown, wavy hair.

00:24:23    BRAD BAILEY
But Elizabeth from Pennsylvania.

00:24:26    CATHERINE BERGER
And I believe she went to Carnegie Mellon for college.

00:24:28    BRAD BAILEY
And what cabin were you that year?

00:24:30    CATHERINE BERGER
I don't know, I don't know what number we were. But I don't know, it- there was a girls cabin number. I could probably vaguely find it on a map.

00:24:37    BRAD BAILEY
No worries. So what were some of the most memorable- just like moments you had with Liz or with other people that that summer as well, besides the the concert performances. Yeah.

00:24:47    CATHERINE BERGER
Well, so one another friend I had, her name was Laurel. Laurel was from Iowa, and I know she went to college at, I believe.. which one? Which is the one at Ames? Is it Iowa State or University of Iowa?

00:24:58    BRAD BAILEY
I don't know. I'll have to. I'll have to look. Yeah.

00:25:01    CATHERINE BERGER
Liz was also played violin. She was much better than I was. But the orchestra started earlier than everything else. So the two of us.

00:25:09    BRAD BAILEY
Iowa state.

00:25:10    CATHERINE BERGER
Yeah. So I think we had to be at breakfast like a full hour before anyone else in order to get to- But I remember we would just leave the cabin together and walk over and, you know, we walk in the door of the dining hall and everybody tosses their instrument on the floor. It was like this huge thing of instruments, which normally would have given me a heart attack to just leave my violin somewhere. But of course there it's totally normal and we would eat together and go to rehearsal together. And that was really lovely as well. Her best friend from high school ended up also going to Yale and being in my class at Yale, so I did see Liz a few years later when she was out visiting her friend.

00:25:45    BRAD BAILEY
So are there people from here who who you've stayed in contact with or been able to stay in contact with organically and inorganically?

00:25:52    CATHERINE BERGER
Unfortunately, no. Yeah. I think we all people just kind of stopped writing letters once college started. And, you know, just it was harder at that time. I think nowadays it would have been a lot easier because you'd have text and email.

00:26:04    BRAD BAILEY
Yeah, exactly.

00:26:05    CATHERINE BERGER
My 13 year old still texts friends from camp when she was eight, and they have a text group chat. I mean, that's crazy to me, but, you know, they just- it's easier for them to keep in touch.

00:26:17    BRAD BAILEY
And so.

00:26:17    CATHERINE BERGER
Yeah.

00:26:18    BRAD BAILEY
Did you have a favorite place here on campus that you liked that you still remember?

00:26:26    CATHERINE BERGER
Yeah, I really liked the, that there was a dock with a swimming area. And you could also take canoes out and just be on the lake. And I loved going swimming in the lake and just sitting out there and going out in the canoe. Actually, one thing Liz and I used to do, my Carnegie Mellon friend, so we were both really focused. We were both going to be taking the SAT when we got back to, you know, home. So we would actually take an SAT prep book out which tells you- tells you what nerds we were. We would take an SAT prep book out with us into the canoe, and we would quiz each other on vocabulary words.

00:26:57    BRAD BAILEY
Wow. Clearly you both did well, but that's fantastic. Did you do that like a couple times or sort of all summer?

00:27:04    CATHERINE BERGER
Something we did. Yeah, like several times.

00:27:07    BRAD BAILEY
That's a rare one. It's a rare one to take. Take a- take an SAT book out on the lake and to quiz each other on vocabulary words. Wow. That's a great one. I love that.

00:27:19    CATHERINE BERGER
It was nice because I was like, well, there's- there's somebody else here who really wants to make sure that they get a really good, as good a score as they can. And so that was a nice little bonding experience.

00:27:29    BRAD BAILEY
And so what would be your one takeaway from your like Interlochen experience in general?

00:27:35    CATHERINE BERGER
So one of my biggest takeaways was just how important it was to take advantage of these opportunities. And at Interlochen was one of the first times in my life that all these opportunities to experience so much artistically, it's just in your face. And that continued at Yale, of course, that, I mean, you can't even turn around without there being some other lecture or performance or something going on. I mean, some are much better quality than others, but you have so many opportunities, and that certainly was not something I could was going to experience in west suburban Chicago in the 1980s. Again, lovely place to grow up, but those things just didn't exist. I mean, it was very sports oriented place. And, you know, the nerds and geeks were involved in music and the arts. And, you know, when you go to a huge Midwestern high school, despite there being so many kids with so many varied interests, the schools are super, at least at the time, were super, super sports focused, and I was not an athlete. And so it was really lovely to be in this environment where all these other interesting things were just being thrown at me. And so for me, it was just, oh, I have to take advantage of every single performance, every single lecture, or talk or, you know, anything I can go- I'm going to go hear this person play the harp. I've never heard someone do a harp concert before. That's so cool. It's harp still, like, astound me how they can figure out what to how to play it at all. It's just beautiful. And so that was- and that continued on in college, that it made me want to experience as much as possible to just open my own my viewpoints and expand my own horizons. You've got all these amazing people that you can sit and talk to in the dining hall and and all these, you know, really, really smart, accomplished people who are almost always willing to talk to you and give you the time of day. You know, we're seeing this going to happen is they're gonna tell you to go away.

00:29:20    BRAD BAILEY
So in many ways, it was a good preparation, not just for Yale but for your life, you know.

00:29:25    CATHERINE BERGER
Oh yeah, yeah.

00:29:26    BRAD BAILEY
And sort of your first opportunity to sort of step out on a different stage in life, literally and figuratively, you know, and sort of test your mettle with the best of them, so to speak. And you did well, I would admit you did very well.

00:29:39    CATHERINE BERGER
Thank you.

00:29:39    BRAD BAILEY
How would you describe Interlochen for someone who.. who has not been here.

00:29:45    CATHERINE BERGER
Oh, gosh. Just- it's just a magical place. And I think that's the kind of sentiment you'll get from a lot of us who spent time there in the summer. There's just something really electric about being 24/7 in an environment where it is okay to practice your art. It is okay to enjoy the art. It is okay to be involved as much as you want to be. It's okay to spend all day in a practice room. It's okay to spend all day painting or doing your musical theatre. All these things that are often for, I think, kids, very much more marginalized activities. So it's kind of like getting an entire summer with 1500 theater kids, and who are also so much more accepting and open, like, oh, anything goes, oh, you want to wear that? Fine. You do that. That's so cool. Oh, you want to spend all day playing piano? Good. Have fun. We'll see you later. It's a very different environment, at least from the one I- the environment I had been in most of my life.

00:30:42    BRAD BAILEY
And so what is your hope for Interlochen's future?

00:30:45    CATHERINE BERGER
I mean, just hopefully they're continuing to do what they've been doing and made it even better. Gosh, just keep providing all these opportunities for kids. You know, a place like Interlochen for many kids is probably, in some ways, going to be a lifesaver because they're going to realize, like, okay, there's other kids like me out there. There's other kids with my interests. There's other kids that I can relate to. I am no longer the, you know, you know, the strange boy who likes to, you know, put butterfly wings on and dance on stage. Like, there's a lot of other kids here like me. And I feel like in many ways that's going to open so many eyes, but also potentially save people's lives when they realize, like, okay, I'm going to find my people because I have my people here. And I felt like I found my people. I mean, my cabinmates were amazing, but also in the music part of things that I could find my people and that it was just a matter. I had some really good friends in the arts in high school, especially coming from a big public high school. But I felt like, okay, in college, I'm going to have more of an opportunity to find my people. So doing artistic stuff is cool and it's- it's okay to do it.

00:31:51    BRAD BAILEY
And so what do you believe is your advice for either current or future Interlochen students?

00:31:59    CATHERINE BERGER
Gosh, I really think it's just take advantage of the of the opportunities when you're there and, you know, go to all these different performances, learn as much as you can, ask questions, be open to all the new people you're going to meet. And I mean, I think that's good life advice in general outside of Interlochen as well.

00:32:17    BRAD BAILEY
The last question, but definitely not the least why does art matter in our world today to you?

00:32:24    CATHERINE BERGER
So I actually wrote one of my medical school essays, admission essays, on a similar, you know, kind of a similar vibe. And I don't know if you remember this, but I remember I'm not- I don't know if it was the year that you.. and because you're two years behind me from college, right? You were '96? Yeah. So you and I sang together for- we overlapped one year in the glee club, I think..

00:32:42    BRAD BAILEY
Um, I think two, didn't we?

00:32:44    CATHERINE BERGER
So you..

00:32:45    BRAD BAILEY
Oh, it was, it was, it was just one. It was just right. It was just one. It was just one.

00:32:48    CATHERINE BERGER
I was a senior when you were a sophomore.

00:32:49    BRAD BAILEY
It was just one.

00:32:50    CATHERINE BERGER
I don't hear that David Connell was giving us- he was just talking about kind of how the piece was coming together. I don't remember what piece it was, but how we were all parts and that this is an example. And it was some- we did some spectacular run through of something. And he said he was just like quiet and almost looked like he was going to cry. And he said, "Whole is more than the sum of its parts."

00:33:12    BRAD BAILEY
Oh, I do remember that. That was that was our year, I think it was our year. It was our year.

00:33:18    CATHERINE BERGER
And I used the how it had come together to produce this kind of ethereal, spectacular song or performance or run through to talk about kind of the human body and how the human body functions is more than just little bits and pieces. I mean, there's tons of little bits and pieces, but getting it all to work cohesively is is much more than just sticking the pieces together. It's not like building a Lego set. So I forget where I was going with this, but I feel like that's somewhat- somewhat what you need to do with arts in general. I mean, you can look at a painting and you see like, oh, those are really- you notice one thing the first time you look at the painting, you might come back later and look at it again and you notice a whole bunch of other things. You come back again and you maybe learned a little bit about the artist's life or their history or what was going on, or you know, who they dedicated their children or something like that. And you kind of look at it in a different way. And I feel like music and the arts in general are like that, that it's going to be a different experience almost every time you see or hear something, but you have so much to gain out of it each time. I don't know if that makes any sense.

00:34:21    BRAD BAILEY
It makes all the sense in the world, actually. It makes all the sense in the world.

00:34:25    CATHERINE BERGER
Yeah, just- and also it humbles you because you can't hear a piece of music or look at a piece of art and think, oh, I've gotten everything I'm going to get out of this. I'm done. Like, it doesn't work like that.

00:34:36    BRAD BAILEY
No it doesn't.

00:34:37    CATHERINE BERGER
So one more experience. Can I just share one more thing?

00:34:40    BRAD BAILEY
Sure, sure, sure. Of course.

00:34:41    CATHERINE BERGER
So I wrote one of my medical school- no, I wrote one of my college essays on Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, which I played that summer, and it's to this day is one of my favorite, favorite pieces of music. And we were doing a run through in Kresge and there was a woman in the audience who was bawling her eyes out because, you know, the rehearsals were all open. And that was really amazing to me because I did never, had never really occurred to me that music could move someone to tears. I hadn't experienced that before. I hadn't experienced it myself. But this particular piece, every time I hear it, I think about her and also just how amazing it was to be part of playing this piece of music. And this was just a rehearsal. It wasn't even a performance.

00:35:27    BRAD BAILEY
Wow. That's. No, that's. I'm sorry. I'm just quiet because again, I'm just I'm just sort of, like absorbing that. And so I guess that was the major crux of that essay that you were like, this is something that impacted my life by seeing how much it impacted somebody else's.

00:35:40    CATHERINE BERGER
Exactly.

00:35:41    BRAD BAILEY
And I think you were going back to that medical school analogy, how music and the core of how a chorus in its parts are similar to the body, and how the body sort of has all the parts have to work together for the- and that's a beautiful analogy as well, and something I didn't think about really until you just mentioned it.

00:35:59    CATHERINE BERGER
So yeah.

00:36:00    BRAD BAILEY
So thank you for that.

00:36:01    CATHERINE BERGER
Well, and also thinking that, you know, these glee club and my experience at Interlochen, those gave me material to think about and to write essays that then got me into these amazing institutions for my own education. I'm very grateful for that.

00:36:17    BRAD BAILEY
You do credit this institution with giving you that.. what? Giving you what in that regard?

00:36:23    CATHERINE BERGER
It's given me the life experiences that really expanded my mindset so that I could formulate these types of thoughts and ideas and curiosity that I hadn't previously had enough life exposure to even come up with. And I think that's also a testament to why, like, you know, travel and literature and the arts. And I mean, just getting out and meeting new people is so important for people from all over the place, because you learn so much just from meeting other people and being exposed to different things in the world.

00:36:55    BRAD BAILEY
Thank you again, Catherine, for this fantastic interview. And just it was candid and it was frank and it was passionate. And I appreciate you this evening. Anything else you'd like to add before we conclude our interview today?

00:37:07    CATHERINE BERGER
Gosh, I mean, no, no, I mean, I have so many memories. I need to go find my old photo album and pull it out and just look at some of those old pictures I have. I'm thinking about some of them right now, but, you know, it's just such a magical place. Oh, I have one question for you. Do they still make the boys do forced fun?

00:37:22    BRAD BAILEY
Oh, I don't know. I would have to figure that. I'll have to ask someone. I'll have to ask someone.

00:37:28    CATHERINE BERGER
Something that at the time, even I felt like I was like, God, that's kind of sexist. But, you know, what do we know? It was the 80s. Girls were not required to do any kind of physical activity. The boys were required to do something like half an hour to an hour of physical activity a day that they called forced fun.

00:37:43    BRAD BAILEY
Oh, I don't think that probably exists anymore. I don't think yeah, I don't think that was.

00:37:47    CATHERINE BERGER
Fun, you know? And I'm sure it had a real name, but it was like, oh, God, we have to go back. We have forced fun at 3:00, you know?

00:37:54    BRAD BAILEY
I think that's gone. I would think that's gone. I can, I can, I can check, but at the moment I would think that would be gone. Yeah. Yeah.

00:38:01    CATHERINE BERGER
Well, I do think some form of physical activity is obviously good for our bodies and our minds. And especially when you, you might have a subset of kids who is maybe a little bit less physically active than your standard cross section of teenagers. So in that sense, I think it's good to encourage. On the other hand, the boys camp still was like a hike away. It wasn't- It was down, you know, of course, they, being very binary, had the girls here and the boys way over there because, you know, we would not want to overlap anyone, God forbid. And who knows how it is now. Hopefully they're a little more progressive, but I do remember the boys constantly complaining about forced fun.

00:38:38    BRAD BAILEY
I think maybe one of those. That's one of those things that they got rid of. But I will double check and let you know. I will double check and let you know. We have a couple a couple things to follow up on with this interview. Well thank you. Like I said, and you're more than willing to also come back at, you know, to when you get the photo album out. If you would like to share any of those photos, we would love to see them, find a way to scan them and to send them here and put them in the archives. Whatever you would feel free on sharing would be would be great. And so, and of course, we are more than willing to also come back for second interview. You know, if you feel something or there's something you also want to share with any of these other experiences as well, you know. So thank you. This concludes today is June 26th, 2024. This is concluding that oral history interview with Catherine Berger. And your last name your current last name is-

00:39:27    CATHERINE BERGER
Catherine Berger-Dujmovic.

00:39:28    BRAD BAILEY
Great. Thank you. Conducted by Brad Bailey on the campus of Interlochen Center for the Arts. What a pleasure, Catherine. Thank you very much.

00:39:35    CATHERINE BERGER
You're welcome.