Interview with Ashton W. Staniszewski, Communications and Marketing Assistant, Office of Public Relations, Berry College.

First, what did you leave Berry with, besides a degree, upon graduation? Has what you learned helped you deal with the stresses of your profession?

Berry College provided a place of safety, during a time of great personal exploration and transformative growth for me.  Its campus provided ample personal space for reflection and contemplation of what is most important in one’s life.  I was always impressed that Martha Berry wrote that she was interested in campus buildings- even barns- with spires, so that one’s eye would be directed upward.  For me, this is very important, an outlook of seeing not only with one’s eyes, but in one’s inner-eye, the possibilities of one’s future.  My time at Berry (1984 – 1989) instilled a deeper personal confidence that carried me forward into a much different environment, as three months after graduation, I went on to a much larger city and university, as I entered graduate school at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Secondly, obviously your performance on May 30, 2008, is one of the highlights for the event. How do you feel about being the keynote performance of the weekend? Moreover, being the centennial celebration do you feel any added pressure?

When Berry invited me to return for this concert, and as I began to prepare for it, I realized from the beginning the importance of such an occasion, and that the audience would be of varied musical backgrounds and interests.  I tried to keep this in mind as I prepared what material to sing.  I remembered the folks I had met while participating in Berry Work Week about ten years ago.  So I was particularly interested in making the concert a bit more personal to the alumni in particular, for whom the weekend is all about.  While the concert is obviously about “me”, this Alumni Weekend is about something much more, something with depth, to be cherished and remembered by everyone.  It is about “us”, the alumni, and our common identity to Berry, and our great Founder, Martha Berry, who started it all.

So I approached the concert, not from the standpoint of a traditional classical art song recital, with songs representing different periods of compositional periods and languages, something you would hear at Carnegie Hall, or a Berry student recital.  But also, I decided not to approach the concert from the standpoint of presenting a concert of “opera” arias from an “opera singer”… I know that in attendance, will be those with varying musical preferences, from hard-core musical academic types to those with very little to no knowledge of classical music at all.  My approach was to include some art song, but also things that people are going to recognize and enjoy.

For those very familiar with classical music, I wanted to present something that perhaps they had never before heard.  For this, there will be six songs by Rachmaninoff, from Opus 34, in the Russian language, which are not well-known but are very beautiful.  These are new songs for me, which I prepared just for the occasion, during the last two months while I was singing in Brazil.

Many alumni might not be avid followers of classical music but will most-likely attend religious services.  So for this crowd, I am presenting The Lord’s Prayer, at the very beginning.  I am doing this as a way to point to Martha Berry, who wrote in her famous letter to the alumni, “Prayer Changes Things.”  There will also be a selection of Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah.

I also wanted to include something that would be appropriate for this 100th Anniversary.  Something that would remind the folks of their time at Berry- something inspiring and familiar.  So the audience is going to get to sing in the very beginning- Berry’s Alma Mater is on the program!

And then there will be two or three familiar opera arias, or course, that people will recognize and enjoy.  In addition, Harry Musselwhite and I are working up a duet from Gounod’s opera, Faust.

Maybe there will be an “encore or two”, depending on the energy of the audience, and the condition of my voice!

And lastly, you said in your e-mails that you’ve visited Berry on several occasions over the years. What is one thing that you most look forward to when making the trek back to your alma mater?

I am not able to return to Berry as much as I would like, perhaps once every few years.  I have occasionally returned in order to work with Harry Musselwhite, and since I have not lived in Georgia since graduating from Berry in 1989, my visits usually must be during the holidays, when I happen to be in Georgia, visiting with my parents in La Grange, Georgia, just a two-hour drive away, down Martha Berry Highway.  I also return in order to visit with my dear friend, Mrs. Sally Keown Riggs, who is an alumna of Berry and whose father happened to have personally worked for Martha Berry.  We became very good friends, while singing together in the choir at the First United Methodist Church in Rome.  Her personal friendship, in addition to her intense love of Berry and her knowledge of its proud history, have always had an indelible influence on me.