MUSIC
93
In Concert Ernie and Helen Berlin have devoted their retirement
years to ensuring the success of the Treasure Coast
Concert Association
BY WILLI MILLER
PHOTOS BY PORFIRIO SOLORZANO
There doesn’t seem to be a definitive history of the
organization that was known as the Fort Pierce Mutual
Concert Association until 1982, when it became the
Treasure Coast Concert Association. But under one name or
another, it has been bringing great performances to the
Treasure Coast for 50 years.
The late Roger White, a well-known local radio personality,
held the reins for at least two decades until 1998, when
Stuart resident Ernie Berlin took over. Berlin, a music lover
since his teens, admits that organizing concerts was uncharted
territory for him.
Before retiring to Stuart, he had been a senior vice president
in the futures division of American Express in New
York City. As a teenager in Depression-era Kansas City, Mo.,
however, he was exposed to some of the best jazz bands
coming out of the South, and even played saxophone and
clarinet with some of them to pay his way through the
University of Missouri. Berlin recalls that back then, when he
had just one pair of corduroy pants to his name, he would
speed home from high school on his bike every day to hear
the great Count Basie. “He would play the Reno Club at
night and then show up at a tiny Kansas City radio station at
3 the next afternoon to play a half hour of electric organ,
live,” Berlin says.
With no employment prospects in Kansas City after college,
the adventurous young man hopped on a train for New
York, to see the world and try something new. The jobs
Berlin found introduced him to a career in brokerage houses
but didn’t make him rich. He discovered an agency that
mailed out free tickets for concerts at Carnegie Hall to people
who agreed to pay the postage.
Retirement from American Express and a dislike of cold
weather brought Berlin and his wife, Helen, to Stuart in 1989,
but it was a small ad in the local paper that took him to leading
the Treasure Coast Concert Association less than a
decade later. “The ad was for an appearance by the first
harpist from the New York Philharmonic, presented by the
Martin County libraries and booked into the Lyric,” he
recalls.
Fresh from New York, he was afraid the concert would be
sold out before he could get two tickets. But when he was
told that only four had been sold, he decided something had
to be done. The Berlins took the library’s mailing list and the
This year’s performances include the Fabulous 5 Browns on Jan 7;
Ben Heppner on Jan. 18; JeanYves Thibaudet on Jan. 28; the Israel
Chamber Orchestra conducted by Philippe Entremont on Feb. 13;
Conrad Tao on Feb. 29; Shunske Sato on March 18; and the Emerson
String Quartet with Wu Han on March 24. For more information,
call 772.220.8400 or visit ovationconcerts.org.
directory from the community where they lived and made
calls to everyone. When that didn’t sell enough seats, he
asked for the rest of the tickets as payment for their work
and filled the house with piano students from the area.
“When the concert ended, the audience stood up and
roared,” Berlin says.
Changes have been made in the TCCA’s programs since
Berlin took over, although it has taken years for him to make
the contacts that have made it possible. “We wanted to do
something different,” he says. “We decided to try to elevate
the quality of performers, bring in the big names—people
who are very difficult to get. Many of the artists, many of
them Metropolitan Opera stars, you would see only if you
lived in New York.” In just the past couple of years, TCCA
audiences have heard Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell, Deborah
Voigt, Doc Severinsen, Diane Reeves and many other international
headliners.
Whenever he can, Berlin arranges master classes for area
students. Rolf Smedvig of the Empire Brass worked with
several dozen horn students in the performance studio at
WQCS in Fort Pierce a few years ago. Education is a large
part of Berlin’s mission. “If we don’t do something with our
kids, we’ll be lost,’’ he says. A yearly essay contest gives students
a chance to win a season pass to the series of concerts.
In 1998, the Treasure Coast Concert Association presented
four concerts. Ten years later, there are seven scheduled.
/ovationconcerts.org