ABOUT MIRIAM |
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miriam berg was born in Sacramento, California the grandchild of 4 California pioneering families she grew up in the Sierra foothills and in Reno, Nevada after her parents divorced she returned with her mom and three siblings to live in Woodland, California which was her mother's birthplace she graduated from Woodland High School in 1952 nine years later she graduated in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley she began playing the piano at age 7 the tuba at 11 and the string bass at 12 the bassoon at 15 and the guitar at age 22 she learned folk dancing from Lucile Czarnowski one of the founders of the folk dance movement who had studied with Jane Farwell she joined the UC Hiking Club in about 1956 and began attending their folk singing parties and their folk dancing parties and finally becoming their folk dance teacher in a building called Senior Men's Hall she taught folk dancing there from 1961 to 1965 when they were expelled by the Faculty Men's Club for dancing too late and too loud she attended Stockton Folk Dance Camp for the first time in 1953 and for several years subsequently (her father Frank Fitz was a charter member of Camp attending the first one in 1948) she attended her first San Francisco Kolo Festival in 1955 and every year after that until 1979 serving on the Kolo Festival Committee every year from 1959 through 1979 and beginning again in 1997) she attended the first Teton Tea Party in Berkeley in 1960 led by Bill Briggs, a Teton Mountain rockclimber Teton Tea Party is an all night folksinging party where anyone can come and play and sing and join in and she was a regular at the Teton Tea parties continued by Charlie "Brown" Artman from about 1961 until 1977 in Berkeley and Oakland and when the Ashkenaz music and dance cafe was opened in Berkeley by David Nadel she taught Balkan dances there from 1973 till 1977 she joined the Berkeley Friends Meeting in 1964 and she has served two terms as clerk from 1974 to 1977 and from 2002-2003 in 1971 she began to lead a small madrigal group which never performed but sang for the joy of it this led her to use her natural musical ability to write choral arrangements and madrigal-type choral pieces in 1991 she began leading a choral singing group at the Berkeley Friends Meeting which has been meeting every year since in 1990 she completed "THE STORY OF YESHUA", a biography of Jesus based on her study of the gospels and many other references about the gospels -- a link to it is shown adjacent she is now retired from her computer programming career of 46 years; the last 22 years of which were at a nonprofit homeless services agency now she spends her time playing with her grandchildren and working on this website (more later) |
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Additional web sites: | www.miriamberg.com | |||||