After a 40-year career as a banking executive in Milwaukee, I built a house in 1999 on the water in Ellison Bay with my late dear wife Jeanne. We built our house out of Door County beach stone and modeled after the similar style homes we saw on the Swedish Island of Gotland.
Music has been a passion in my life since college, when by accident, I heard the Beethoven 9th Symphony for the first time. It was as though lightening had struck. I was immediately transported into another world. I started my voracious collection of recordings and I soon realized that for me the great classics had a profound effect on my feelings and my appreciation of life. Music has brought me endless pleasures, and it has fed my soul and enriched my life beyond words. Jeanne and I traveled far and wide to hear concerts.
My appetite for this music was recognized by Milwaukee organizations like The Florentine Opera Company, The United Performing Arts Fund, The Bel Canto Chorus and The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and they all asked me to join their boards. Eventually all of these Boards elected me as their Chairman, an honor indeed. My service on these boards, however, quickly transferred from the love of the art form to a civic duty when I realized the institutional importance these organizations had on the quality of life in our city.
I am still on the Milwaukee Symphony Board after 35 years. After about 5 years on this board I realized that the Symphony needed to have its own home. I decided then to make that one of my life’s goals. That goal has now been realized with our purchase and renovation of the former Warner Grand movie theater into what is already recognized as one of the country’s most beautiful and acoustically perfect halls in the country. I am pleased that The Symphony has named the Grand Art Deco lobby in Jeanne’s and my name. My real satisfaction today is not that the Symphony has its own hall, it is that we have given Milwaukee this marvelous cultural gem. That is why I am so proud.
In Door County I have served on the Peninsula Music Festival Board and, of course, the Midsummers Music Board. I am honored to be designed Honorary Chairman of this distinguished organization. Midsummer’s Music is the culmination of the tireless efforts of Jim and Jean Berkenstock, its world class musicians, the competent management, and the fine board.
“What can be more wonderful than the combination of the great beauty of Door County with the great beauty of the chamber music played in the midst of the many settings that Midsummer’s Music performs in? In these concerts our visual and aural senses artistically reinforce one another to bring us a heightened pleasure and life enhancing experience.
“The intimacy of great chamber music can move our spirit and our souls in a way that few kinds of artistic experiences can. Every concert is different: some are joyous, some are contemplative, some are spiritual, and some are an outright thrill ride.
“What a treasure we have here in the Door Peninsula! We need to do everything we can to preserve this gem of an experience here in our midst. Midsummer’s Music has given me a wonderful richness to my life, as I know it has for countless others.”