Meet the Musician: Stacey Berk, Principal Oboe
If you’ve attended a Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra concert anytime over the last two decades, you’ve heard the stunning, expressive voice of our Principal Oboist, Stacey Berk.
Calling Waupaca, WI home, Stacey has been anchoring the CWSO woodwind section since 2002. That’s 24 years of gorgeous solos, meticulously crafted reeds, and musical dedication!
To help our audience get to know the person behind that beautiful oboe sound, we asked Stacey to answer a few questions.
Many musicians discover their instrument in a fifth grade band room, but Stacey’s musical destiny was sealed much earlier.
“I chose it—or it chose me?—in second grade,” Stacey recalls. “I first learned about it at my older sister’s ‘pick an instrument’ night at school. I started playing it in fourth grade.”
That early spark ignited a lifelong passion. Today, Stacey is a master of the double reeds. While she sits in the Principal Oboe chair, her musical toolkit is vast. She also plays the English horn, baroque oboe, bassoon, and flute, and she can hold her own on the piano and as a vocalist!
With a musical mind as active as Stacey’s, picking a single favorite piece of music is an impossible task.
“There are so many good ones,” she admits. “Today it is Ravel’s ‘Tombeau de Couperin,’ but tomorrow it’ll be something else.” (We can’t blame her, Ravel wrote some of the most iconic, dazzling oboe solos in history!)
When it comes to favorite composers, she loves the biting wit and brilliant orchestration of Sergei Prokofiev, alongside the dramatic, modern masterworks of American composer John Corigliano.
When she isn’t making reeds or performing on stage, Stacey keeps her hands busy with a surprisingly fitting hobby: woodworking. Given the precision, patience, and appreciation for fine wood required to play and maintain an oboe, shaping wood in a workshop seems like a perfect match!
And when she needs to get moving? You can find her out on the pickleball court.
To wrap things up, we asked Stacey about her go to ice cream flavor. Her answer was decisive, classic, and absolutely delicious: Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream.
The next time you are at a CWSO concert, keep an eye out for Stacey in the woodwind section and listen closely for that unmistakable, rich oboe tone that has been a cornerstone of our orchestra for 24 incredible years.