Vocalist reimagines American songbook

Rockville Centre native Celia Berk had a natural calling to sing. When she was growing up, she made it a goal to seize any and every opportunity to participate in every music-based program that the school had to offer.

Her earliest memory of music is her father playing Al Jolson recordings. “He really instilled in me a love of the Great American Songbook,” Berk said.

Her mother would take her to the Metropolitan Opera. Berk described her grandmother as a "wonderful pianist" and her grandmother's sister was an opera singer so music influenced her life right away. When Berk got older, her grandmother gave her a classic 1926 Steinway piano so she could take lessons.

“I wish I could say I played well, but it wasn’t really my instrument,” Berk said.

Berk’s instrument is, in fact, her voice. By the time she was in high school, she began taking the Long Island Rail Road into the city to take voice lessons with professional teachers. Even now, decades since she graduated from Hofstra in the late ‘70s, she continues to take voice lessons to perfect her craft.

As an award-winning vocalist, Berk blurs the line between classical and contemporary music as she creates her own renditions of early 20th century American songs.

Inspired by the Great American Songbook and classic Broadway musicals, she composes her songs based around their foundations. Her inspiration stems from the influence that her family had on her early life, which helped shape the way that she makes music today.

Although she is recognized for her musical renditions, many of her listeners aren’t aware of the extent of work that goes on behind the scenes. To ensure her music does not break any copyright laws, she does a lot of research to make sure her sound is distinct.

“It can be scary waiting for those custom licenses to come through after you’ve already recorded something and have invested so much in it emotionally and financially,” Berk said.

She said that she feels fortunate that all of her renditions have fallen in line with copyright laws. However, this process takes time and involves multiple people working together.

Sometimes Berk needs to go to the songwriter directly for permission or other times she needs to ask for the rights from their publisher.

“For example, on ‘Manhattan Serenade,’ I did the first commercial recording of ‘The Broadway Song’ by Cy Coleman and David Zippel,” Berk said. “I worked directly with their lawyers, who drew up custom licenses for me.”

Berk needs to get mechanical licenses to make her covers, which she usually obtains through a clearinghouse like the company, Easy Song.

Paperwork isn’t the only thing that Berk has to deal with, however, as she also has to figure out which songs would be perfect to cover in her album.

“For the albums, there is always some kind of theme,” Berk said. “For example, ‘Manhattan Serenade’ is about my love for the city and how I personally experience it. So those songs convey that.”

She said that her most recent album, “Now That I Have Everything” is about the ways we try — both successfully and unsuccessfully — to connect our heart to someone else’s.

She also meticulously chooses certain songs that make her covers more unique.

“But the thing that really distinguishes my song choices is that I tend to choose ‘hidden gems’ by great songwriters,” Berk said. “In other words, not the usual suspects.” This is one way she is trying to make her covers stand out.

“There’s always a reason why I have chosen the song — what it means to me, what it says to me, and about me,” Berk said. She hopes this is what makes her music distinctive for her listeners.

The Covid-19 pandemic also posed a major setback in her process, but she managed to work through it by using Zoom and FaceTime. And, at the height of the pandemic in 2020, she created and released three new singles.

Berk began recording her new album in June 2021. Thanks to the quick thinking of her producer, Scott Lehrer, they managed to find a way to assemble the jazz musicians without needing to be in the same room together.

“Scott found a studio in Brooklyn called, ‘Big Orange Sheep’ which had lots of individual isolation booths. So, we found a way to make it all work safely,” Berk said.

Despite the hard work she must endure, Berk said she couldn’t imagine a world where she was not singing. She couldn’t even remember a time when she wasn’t interested in music and doesn’t see it ending anytime soon.

“I did three singles and an album in the last two-and-a-half years,” Berk said. “But I have lots of ideas and wonderful collaborators to work with when I’m ready.”

You can find Berk's music on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, and Pandora. She also can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube with the username, CeliaBerkMusic. 

She returns to the Laurie Beechman Theatre at the West Bank Cafe in NYC on Sunday, October 23 at 4pm with her cabaret show "ON MY WAY TO YOU: Improbable Stories That Inspired An Unlikely Path” https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe.c/11103685 or https://www.westbankcafe.com/laurie-beechman-theatre