Oral History Interview with J Berry

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 20th, 2024. This is an oral history interview with

00:00:07    J BERRY
J Berry.

00:00:08    BRAD BAILEY
And could you spell that?

00:00:09    J BERRY
Just J is the initial and then B e r r y great.

00:00:13    BRAD BAILEY
Conducted by Brad Bailey on the campus of Interlochen Center for the Arts. So where were you born and where did you spend your childhood?

00:00:21    J BERRY
I was born in Detroit, Michigan, and I spent my childhood in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, just outside Detroit.

00:00:26    BRAD BAILEY
And so talk to me about what was it like growing up in Grosse Pointe and Detroit?

00:00:32    J BERRY
I enjoyed it, I had a lot of opportunities. I was in choirs, I was in orchestras, I took piano lessons. I was in the Girl Scouts.

00:00:40    BRAD BAILEY
So, yes. Tell me about some of your work with music during your childhood?

00:00:43    J BERRY
My grandparents had a piano in their living room, and I was in love with the piano. And so when I was six, my parents got a piano and I started taking piano lessons. Our church also had a very active choir program for children. And so when I was in the fourth grade, I joined the choir and was there throughout high school, I was in the choir at school, and when I was in the sixth grade, I took violin for a year and then dropped it. And then I was in the choir in the seventh grade.

00:01:10    BRAD BAILEY
Give me a little bit more about your education until, you know, from there to college and of course, your musical education after that point.

00:01:16    J BERRY
I went to Grosse Pointe Public Schools, so I was middle school at Pierce and graduated from Grosse Pointe South, and it was just a regular public school education.

00:01:25    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. And your musical education during that time, did you continue it from childhood into high school?

00:01:29    J BERRY
Yes. So it took a little bit of a detour because I was originally in choirs a lot. And then when I came to camp, I took an instrument exploration class, learned how to play the viola, and that changed the trajectory of my life

00:01:42    BRAD BAILEY
To camp where?

00:01:44    J BERRY
Camp here.

00:01:44    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. So when did you first initially learn about Interlochen?

00:01:47    J BERRY
In the summer of 1972. My family. There's five girls.

00:01:51    BRAD BAILEY
How old were you?

00:01:52    J BERRY
I was 12. Okay, well, that was 11 when we found it. And then I was 12 when I came here. But the summer I was 11, we were camping in various state parks, and we happen to land in the Interlochen State Park. And it was a very rainy summer, and my sister and I were battling it out in the tent, and my parents took us across the road to look at the music camp. And my sister and I fell in love. She was ten, I was 11, and we fell in love with the camp. My father would drop us off at the wishing well with a dollar, and at that time, a dollar could buy a hot dog and a drink and an ice cream cone each. At the Melody Freeze. And she and I would just wander around to classes, and at some point we found our way into the administration building and discovered the applications which were in the Maddy building at that time. And we filled one out and announced we were going to camp the next summer. And we did.

00:02:45    BRAD BAILEY
And so tell me about that first experience at camp coming here. And what was it like when you first got here?

00:02:50    J BERRY
I loved it, I remember everything about it. At 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon, we got here and my father dropped me off in the intermediate division first. I was an intermediate girls cabin six. Found my very first badge when I was going through belongings to move houses this fall.

00:03:07    BRAD BAILEY
And you're wearing it now.

00:03:08    J BERRY
And I'm wearing it now.

00:03:09    BRAD BAILEY
So can you describe to me the badge?

00:03:11    J BERRY
It says National Music Camp because that's what the Interlochen Arts Camp was called until 1989.

00:03:16    BRAD BAILEY
So it's a white badge with green letters.

00:03:18    J BERRY
Yep. And then on the inside, it has a colored piece of paper. Each division had a different color, and it has my name, where I'm from and what division I'm in.

00:03:28    BRAD BAILEY
So can you tell me what the wording is?

00:03:29    J BERRY
It says J Berry, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, IG one because it was the intermediate girls number one division. And then I was in cabin six, and then if you can see that, it's got some little discolored dots on it. That was my swim test and my tippy test.

00:03:45    BRAD BAILEY
Tell me about those.

00:03:46    J BERRY
Everybody that wants to go in the deep water has to take a swim test. Basically, you just swim back and forth, put on a life jacket, tread water, you know, so that you know you can swim in the deep end without going under the water, of course. And then if you want to check out a canoe or kayak or a sailboat, you have to take another tippy test to make sure that you go out in the canoe and swamp it, and then come back in.

00:04:07    BRAD BAILEY
So that you can go to take it out. If it tips, you can be able to handle that. Yep. And so what sort of instrument or what aspect of music did you do that first year?

00:04:16    J BERRY
So that first summer I was actually a theater major and choir major.

00:04:20    BRAD BAILEY
And that was '73,

00:04:21    J BERRY
1973.

00:04:22    BRAD BAILEY
Got it.

00:04:22    J BERRY
And I was supposed to take four classes, so theater was two. Choir was one. And then I was trying to avoid piano lessons that summer. I just didn't want to take piano lessons. And my parents said if I could find a suitable replacement class, that I wouldn't have to take piano lessons. And I found instrument exploration. And back then it was an eight week camp for everybody. So the first four weeks you spent a week on strings, brass, percussion and woodwinds, and then you picked two instruments and I picked tuba and viola, and then you spent one week each on those, and then you picked one instrument and you spent two weeks on those and gave a recital at the end. And my father, up until the day he died, had that recording of that recital.

00:05:07    BRAD BAILEY
Do you have it now?

00:05:08    J BERRY
It's in one of the boxes in my basement.

00:05:11    BRAD BAILEY
Wow, that'd be great.

00:05:11    J BERRY
Yeah.

00:05:12    BRAD BAILEY
How many weeks is that in total?

00:05:13    J BERRY
It was eight weeks back then. Loved every minute of it. I got here at 4:30 on a Saturday and checked in. And then my father took off with my sister to take her down to juniors. And he later said, years later, after all of my sisters had gone here and two of my sisters had met their husbands here while they were working in the summers, that he had made it as far back as Cadillac on the way back down to Detroit and then thought, what am I doing? I'm leaving my kids in the middle of nowhere, and they've never been away from home before. And so he came back to check on us, and we never even noticed he was there because we were already that enraptured with the place.

00:05:52    BRAD BAILEY
So he didn't even announce himself. When he came back that second time. He just, he-

00:05:56    J BERRY
Talked to the division directors.

00:05:57    BRAD BAILEY
Got it? Got it.

00:05:58    J BERRY
Who were like, they're fine.

00:06:00    BRAD BAILEY
Wow.

00:06:00    J BERRY
So. Yeah.

00:06:02    BRAD BAILEY
And so explain to me, Juniors again?

00:06:04    J BERRY
Juniors are the youngest campers. The 8- to 11- year olds and intermediates are 11 to 15. And high school are 14 to 18 or 19.

00:06:12    BRAD BAILEY
Got it. And how many sisters do you have?

00:06:14    J BERRY
I have four sisters.

00:06:15    BRAD BAILEY
And how many have come here?

00:06:16    J BERRY
All of them have been here in some capacity. And my next two younger sisters were campers as well. One for four for summers and one for one.

00:06:23    BRAD BAILEY
So you're the oldest?

00:06:24    J BERRY
I'm the oldest.

00:06:25    BRAD BAILEY
Got it. So you're the oldest. And then the next oldest were here that summer of '73.

00:06:28    J BERRY
Correct, yeah.

00:06:29    BRAD BAILEY
And then you said the second two came when?

00:06:31    J BERRY
So then my next younger sister and I came in '73, '74 and '75.

00:06:36    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:06:36    J BERRY
In intermediate and junior. Intermediate and high school. And then the summer of 1976, I was the only one who came back, but I could only come back for All-State, which was run by the University of Michigan. And those were two week programs because I was in a bicentennial tour that summer.

00:06:53    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:06:53    J BERRY
And so I was the only one that came back. And then the following summer, my sister Martha joined us. And so there were three of us here in intermediate and high school division. And then when we started coming back, I started coming back in 1980 as a staff member, following my teacher up here who was teaching here for the summer. And I came up, worked food service.

00:07:13    BRAD BAILEY
What year was that?

00:07:14    J BERRY
1980.

00:07:15    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:07:16    J BERRY
So that I could take lessons from him. And then the next couple of summers, my sisters started trickling in and working for intermediate girls. A lot of them worked for Janet Morris.

00:07:26    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. Our previous interview, for the record. You also have another button, the blue button there.

00:07:32    J BERRY
Yes. This is what Interlochen Arts Academy students used to wear in the winter. It's a round blue button with white lettering that says Interlochen Arts Academy. Interlochen, Michigan. When they stopped using those at the Interlochen Arts Academy, they kept them in the admissions office, would hand them out to alumni in the summer. So that's how I got this one.

00:07:50    BRAD BAILEY
So we moved from 73, 72 technically to 1980. And so what happened then?

00:07:57    J BERRY
I kept coming up here in the summers. I worked food service for several summers, and then I switched to be a practice supervisor. They call them teaching assistants now.

00:08:06    BRAD BAILEY
During the 80s?

00:08:06    J BERRY
During the 80s. And so I did seven summers of that. And then I ran the practice supervisors for three summers.

00:08:13    BRAD BAILEY
Oh, wow.

00:08:13    J BERRY
I was their supervisor. The practice supervisors are, if you walk around campus, there's these long, low huts that have anywhere between 12 and 16 rooms apiece. Okay. So if you are a junior and intermediate camper and are taking a private lesson, you get a practice hour with someone that's in college studying strings or woodwinds or whatever, and they will supervise your practice. So they'll work with your teacher and find out what it is you're supposed to be accomplishing that week, and then they'll help you get to that goal, accomplish that goal, whether it's learning scales or learning a concerto or, you know, whatever it is. And then the third year that I did that, I also managed the camp calendar. And at the end of that year, the head of the camp offered me a full time job.

00:08:56    BRAD BAILEY
Oh, wow.

00:08:57    J BERRY
Being the calendar person, coordinator of facilities, and the instrument services person was leaving. And so we combined the two and I was the coordinator of facilities and instrument services. I did that for seven years. Then I switched and I was the head of stage crew for 16 summers and in the winters still coordinator of facilities. And for a while there in the middle, I was the coordinator of front of house for one school year when they didn't have someone to fill that. And then I moved over to the music department. I was instrument services and the assistant director for music operations, so I was in charge of all of the movement of percussion and harps and pianos and chairs and stands and all sorts of that for all the music department. And then, yeah, I got really good at moving drum sets on flatbed trucks. And then at the end of that I switched to my current job, which is house mother in Thor Johnson dormitory in the winter for the Arts Academy, and in the summer I give tours at the information booth.

00:10:00    BRAD BAILEY
Wow. That's an eclectic, wonderful mix of just sort of experiences here.

00:10:04    J BERRY
Yeah.

00:10:05    BRAD BAILEY
You know, and so that was my question. What did you think you've learned here over all these years? Like give me some of the biggest things that you've learned here, not just as a student and then as an alum, but also as somebody that's worked here in different capacities.

00:10:19    J BERRY
Students can surprise you. They can start out as the shyest, quietest people and end up just shining on stage. Just it's marvelous what they can accomplish during the course of a summer or an academy year.

00:10:33    BRAD BAILEY
Give me more details about that.

00:10:35    J BERRY
I like to-- at the beginning of every year when students are checking in, I always like to greet the students and look them in the eye, talk to them a little bit, and the ones that are the most shy are the ones that I like to follow. I like to see, are they in the orchestra or are they in the theater program? I like to go to their performances. I like to watch them grow as a musician and watch their confidence just unfold as the year goes by or the summer goes by and it's wonderful.

00:11:05    BRAD BAILEY
Are there stories you can tell me of people who you initially saw some of those early summers, and then you saw them later in their career? Any interesting stories you could share?

00:11:14    J BERRY
Not really. I don't have any really interesting stories about that. I mean, there's lots of kids that I've come in contact with over the years, and they come back and work either as staff or as faculty, or you see them out in the real world playing in an orchestra, and they see you and they're like, oh, I remember you from Camp or from Academy.

00:11:32    BRAD BAILEY
Is there a specific example you could mention?

00:11:34    J BERRY
Well, we just had the intensives that are going on right now. One of the former students, Carol Jantsch, she's the first principal tuba player of a major symphony orchestra.

00:11:43    BRAD BAILEY
Which one?

00:11:44    J BERRY
In Philadelphia. And she was back as a faculty member for the low brass intensive. And I got to meet her two year old daughter, this time, named Sydney. And she's just a delightful child. And I remember Carol as an intermediate camper. She started here in juniors, but I remember her as an intermediate camper wearing red socks. And then she was a high school camper. And then she came to the Academy and she was in my sponsor group at the Academy, so I got to know her really well. I was also the ensemble manager in the midst of all those other jobs. I was the ensemble manager for the band, in the orchestra, for the Interlochen Arts Academy for almost 23 years. And so I went to all the rehearsals. I learned all the musicians names. I was in charge of making sure that they didn't lose their instruments, or they had their concert attire correct, that sort of thing. So I got to know Carol really, really well, and she worked for me for a summer on stage crew, and then she was faculty after that, and she comes back every year, and it's great to see what she's turned out to be.

00:12:43    BRAD BAILEY
Wow. So what did you learn at Interlochen that's been significant in your life later?

00:12:51    J BERRY
Flexibility. Things can turn on a dime here. People come and go. Programs change. Programs change again. Sometimes, like last year, we had to switch on a dime when we had a huge storm on the first opening night of camp, and everybody went into the basements, literally in the basements for two hours. When they got them out, they had to figure out how to feed them because this happened over the dinner hour. And then we had to go to the opening assembly, which happens on Sunday night at 7:00, only it happened at Sunday night at 8:30 because we had to change everything. So flexibility, you turn on a dime. Yeah.

00:13:26    BRAD BAILEY
And so who is the most memorable person you've worked with your time here at Interlochen?

00:13:32    J BERRY
That's difficult. A few come to mind. Van Cliburn, the famous pianist. When I was an intermediate camper, all of the guest artist concerts were free for students, and they brought all of us to them. They were all-gos. And you sat down in the front because you were a camper. And I remember thinking, "Oh, a pianist, this is going to be so boring". And then he walked out and the first thing I noticed was his hands were so big, such long fingers. And then he sat down at the piano and he made the piano sing. I mean, that piano sang. And I thought, "how does he do that?" Because when I play the piano, it does not sound like that. And so I got to watch him all the way through until he stopped performing. And then he came back one summer shortly before he died, a few years before he died, and he performed again with the World Youth Symphony. And he was doing a closed rehearsal. And I was one of the, quote-unquote, door guards to keep people out during the rehearsal. And we were told under no circumstances shake his hand because his hands are very delicate. And, of course, what does he walks up and the first thing he does is stick out his hand. So I shook it, and he held on to my hand, and he was very curious as to who everybody was that he came in contact with. So he asked me about who I was, what I did there, what my history with Interlochen was, and he thought it was fascinating that the first time I'd seen him, I was 12 years old, and here I was in my 50s now, so that was great. Yo-Yo Ma. That was amazing. The first thing he did when he got on campus was, say, "Everybody else is in uniform, I need to be in a uniform." And they took him over to uniforms and got him a pair of corduroys, and off he went. And he found out while he was here, because he was due to be with the World Youth Symphony, the juniors were here that there was an 8- to 11-year-old orchestra, so he went and sat in on a junior orchestra rehearsal in the shed, which to the kids was absolutely marvelous. And then when he did a masterclass, he had a junior at the masterclass, which was originally scheduled only to have high school students. But he had juniors and intermediates at the masterclass once he found out they were here.

00:15:45    SPEAKER_S3
Oh, wow.

00:15:45    J BERRY
Yeah.

00:15:46    BRAD BAILEY
So how did those moments make an impression on the place, in your opinion?

00:15:52    J BERRY
I think one of the magical parts of Interlochen, especially if you're a student, is that these people that you revere, these marvelous teachers and conductors, you sit with them in the cafeteria and you talk to them and they will listen to you. And as a child, there's not a whole lot of adults that'll just sit and talk and listen to you a lot, you know, other than your aunt Bess who loves you or something like that. And so learning from those adults, having those adults be willing to just sit down at a picnic table with a cup of coffee and discuss Brahms is just wonderful.

00:16:26    BRAD BAILEY
So what is your favorite place on the Interlochen campus and why?

00:16:30    J BERRY
Well, I have two places. The first, of course, is the Little Red Schoolhouse, which is now on the north end of campus. And when I was a student, it was over by where Corson is now for instrument exploration. And that's where I learned how to play the viola. And that's what changed the trajectory of my life and turned me into a symphony musician, because I didn't know I could make sounds like that.

00:16:53    BRAD BAILEY
Explain going into detail with that.

00:16:55    J BERRY
I was a theater major and I had taken a year of violin, but you know, it was screechy and didn't like it, so I dropped it. But the viola had this thick, rich tone that was just this side of a cello, but it was a marvelous, rich in the middle kind of harmonious tone. And so I learned how to play the viola, and I never looked back.

00:17:15    BRAD BAILEY
So in terms of looking at that, is there like a humorous or surprising moment that you haven't shared that you'd like to share from your time here?

00:17:23    J BERRY
No.

00:17:23    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. Understood, understood. What lasting friendships have you had here at Interlochen?

00:17:29    J BERRY
I still have friendships from that first summer that I had here and the second summer, of course, you learn all your cabin mates names, and I still have friendships that go back 30, 40, 50 years from that. One of my current best friends on campus who works at the Scholarshop. I met her 40 some odd years ago, and we've been fast friends ever since.

00:17:50    BRAD BAILEY
And can you describe a little bit more about that relationship.

00:17:53    J BERRY
She was on the waterfront. She worked on the waterfront. I was a practice supervisor, and we just happened to get put in a cabin together. Because back when the University of Michigan ran the summer program here, the University of Michigan students were in the dorms and all the staff members lived in cabins, not with the campers, but we lived in our own cabins. And you just randomly got put in a cabin with, you know, 20 other people. And that summer I happened to get put in a cabin with her, and we just hit it off. And we've been friends ever since. And about 3 or 4 years after I met her, I actually introduced her to her now husband because he had been a friend of mine from food service days.

00:18:32    BRAD BAILEY
So can you then describe like, a meaningful collaboration you've had with a colleague or student? Anything off the top of your head besides what you've mentioned already?

00:18:40    J BERRY
Oh, there's been so many. It would be hard. Very hard to pinpoint any of them. You meet the coolest people here, and you find out things about them that you wouldn't ordinarily find out if you're not, say, thrown together on a truck, hugging a harp for 20 minutes while you're waiting for the road to clear. And those things carry with you throughout the years. And this week, especially as people come back for starting to work for core camp, it's like they've never left. You just pick up right where you left off the last time you saw them and just keep on going.

00:19:14    BRAD BAILEY
Because I saw different interactions you've had with people today, you know? And so can you tell me a little bit more about, like, you sort of following up on that, how that works, you know, with people that you've known for a short or long period of time. Like, do you see them because, you know, I didn't think this place isn't very large per se, but it seems like a lot of people hadn't seen each other for a while, though. Yeah. So explain that dynamic.

00:19:35    J BERRY
Well, it just sort of appears in the middle of the north woods and just grows at the beginning of June and then shuts down at the end of August. And, you know, you all go your separate ways and you may or may not see each other. And back in the days before Facebook and Instagram and cell phones and things, of course, you only wrote letters and maybe a Christmas card or two.

00:19:55    BRAD BAILEY
Yeah.

00:19:56    J BERRY
But you'd come back the next summer, pick up where you left off, and those relationships just grow over the years, and you watch people like Heidi that you just saw -I knew her when she was a student here because she and I were students and contemporaries. She was a little bit behind me because she's a little bit younger than I am. But then you watch her have kids, and the kids come here, and the kids grow up and go off and come through all the programs.

00:20:21    BRAD BAILEY
So what keeps you connected to Interlochen after all these years?

00:20:24    J BERRY
It's the magic of the place. It's the unlimited potential. It's the fact that you just don't know what wonderful things you're going to see and hear under, what we call, the stately pines. There's always something to do. There's always something to see. There's must sees every summer. You have to go to a World Youth Symphony Orchestra concert and watch the sunset over Green Lake while you're sitting in Kresge listening to Brahms. I mean, those are the things you have to do. You need to go and see the junior musical theatre or the high school musical theatre. You need to go to a junior art exhibition and see what they create, because some of them draw like eight year olds, and others of them, they're the next Picasso, clearly. And watching them practice in the practice huts and then watching them in a recital with whatever they've polished from their practice hut, it's just phenomenal.

00:21:17    BRAD BAILEY
So then how would you describe Interlochen to someone who hasn't ever experienced it?

00:21:22    J BERRY
It's magical. It's absolutely magical. It is a true bubble. We are up here in the middle of the north woods. It's gorgeous, although sometimes hot, like this week was. And you walk through the trees and you never know what you're going to hear. You might hear a tuba player, you might hear a pianist. You might hear a string quartet. You might hear somebody practicing Shakespeare. And next week, when there are more and more campers here and the recreation programs really kick in, You'll hear the professional Shakespeare company practicing on the Upton Morley stage while there's a soccer game going on on the opera field with the junior campers, and you'll walk by the visual arts building, and there'll be a whole herd of kids out there drawing and sketching the pine trees and the people that are walking by.

00:22:09    BRAD BAILEY
So what changes or developments at Interlochen have you found the most significant in your time here?

00:22:14    J BERRY
I think the campus master plan has been amazing. It started in the late 80s, early 90s, when Sasaki put together the campus master plan of basically all the places that you see, including the one we're sitting in right now, the Music Center. But it's given everybody a home that might not have had it. I mean, visual arts building take - if you go walk by a Mozart-Beethoven, there's a field right across from there. And there used to be a hodgepodge of teeny tiny little buildings with low ceilings and not the best lighting. And that was where the visual arts took place for years and years. They created amazing things in those tiny little cabins and the music building up until the music department, up until this building was opened in 2019, didn't really have a home. We had a little bit of things here. We might be in the gym for a rehearsal. We might be in a visual arts classroom for rehearsal. We might be in a shed for a rehearsal. It was just all over the place. It was just a hodgepodge. And now they have a home. Same thing with the theatre. They had a tiny little theatre in the woods that skunks lived under, so it was always a rather aromatic place to sit and watch a play. And it wasn't soundproof. So in the summer especially, you could hear the boats going by. You could hear the band practicing in the Bowl next door. You could hear the kid in the practice hut practicing the tuba, or in the middle of a very impassioned play, you'd hear piano scales going off. So now they have the beautiful Harvey Theatre complex and all that that entails.

00:23:44    BRAD BAILEY
So what is your hope for the Interlochen's future?

00:23:46    J BERRY
I want it to continue the way it is, the unlimited potential of every kid that walks through the front gate, being able to find their life's passion or something that they're really, really good at, that they didn't know that they were good at. And it's - it's that that keeps going year after year, no matter what buildings are here, no matter what people are here, it's the kids that keep you going. It's the students, the campers in the summer and the arts academy students in the winter. And what they produce, what they learn, how they grow, that makes it all worthwhile.

00:24:21    BRAD BAILEY
And so what advice would you give future - current and future Interlochen staff members?

00:24:26    J BERRY
Go with the flow. Be ready to turn on a dime and it's all about the kids. It needs to all be about the kids. What you're doing in your own life is very, very important, of course, but when you're here and you're wearing a staff badge, you need to focus on the kids that are here. It's all about them.

00:24:45    BRAD BAILEY
And why does art matter in our world today, to you?

00:24:49    J BERRY
It makes it livable. It makes it beautiful. It takes the edge off of the horrible things that happen in the world. And here it really doesn't matter what country you're from, what religion you are. It's what you produce as a citizen artist and how you interact with the students around you that matters. It's a safe place.

00:25:14    BRAD BAILEY
Do you feel like there's a bubble in a different way from the surrounding area?

00:25:18    J BERRY
I do, it's a big bubble. It's very easy to get lost just right here in Interlochen. And depending on what you do like, for instance, if you're working production, you're pretty much chained to the campus. You are working the theater concerts and the dance concerts, and you're in Kresge right now unloading trucks and doing sound checks for the concert tonight, and then doing a load out at 11:00 tonight. That doesn't get done till two in the morning. It's very easy to just get stuck right here and not actually go out and go to Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes or the Cherry Festival, or the nice restaurants that are in Traverse City.

00:25:55    BRAD BAILEY
And so is there anything else you'd like to share about your experience working here at Interlochen that we haven't? You don't think we've covered today?

00:26:02    J BERRY
No. I've done a lot of odd jobs over the years, but my focus is always what's good for the students. And how can I contribute to that? Because when I was a kid, all those adults helped me and believed in me and were interested in me. And I want that for the kids today.

00:26:23    BRAD BAILEY
Well, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you very much for the interview. Yeah. Was there anything else you'd like to share or add?

00:26:29    J BERRY
I think this is the most marvelous place on the planet.

00:26:31    BRAD BAILEY
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. This is Brad Bailey again. I am concluding an interview - oral history interview with Jay Berry today on June 20th, 2024, here on the campus of Interlochen Center for the Arts.