Via Michael Musto’s Facebook:
As I'm sure you've heard, vocal coach extraordinaire Barbara Maier Gustern was assaulted by a crazed woman on Thursday and she is now in critical condition in the hospital. What a horror! When I met Barbara, I found her to be a lovely person with a lot of history, great clients, and a refreshing approach to all of it.
While you continue to send her your love, let me share some of the things she told me in a Paper interview in 2016:
"I knew nothing about downtown until I started working with these people. I love it. I went one night see Lady Rizo at Joe’s Pub....The whole table dared me to get up and dance on the table and I did!
"Some of these people [her clients], if you didn’t know their background, you’d think they were old maid school teachers or something. Some of them are very proper. Most of these people are genuinely sweet and generous and loving and willing to accept things. That’s why I like working with them more than maybe opera singers.
"I was born singing, almost. I didn’t come from a musical family. I was an only child and I had a couple of maiden aunts that doted on me and they both were tone deaf, but they encouraged me. Even as a little kid, I was standing on a chair giving recitals.
"I knew when I graduated college that I wanted to be a singer, but my parents were very much opposed to that. They paid for my lessons and supported me, but didn’t think it was a profession I should be going into. In high school, I was a singer with a jazz combo on Saturday nights. That’s the one Florence Henderson used to sing with. When she left for New York, I took her place. I wanted to get to New York, so I came to Columbia University, got my masters in psychology, got a job for two years at Hunter College, and to keep that job, I had to continue my education. Eventually, I knew I wanted to sing and that was it. So I quit."
"I’m not Jewish, but I got a job in a temple. I’d never even been in a temple in my life, but I said I came from a mixed marriage, and I thought that was true since my mother was a woman and my dad was a man and that was mixed enough. [laughs] That’s where I met my husband."
"Well, I thought you have to be in a union, so I auditioned for this job as a production singer and went to Albany to a big club called Barone’s. I found out I had to be a B-girl—to sit at the bar and push drinks. I was outraged. Being ethical, I gave my two weeks’ notice on the spot. The place was kind of an Albany 'Guys and Dolls', filled with bookies and other types. I then took lessons and thought I‘d be an opera singer. I did lots of summer stock, a season at NYC Opera, regional opera, cruise work, and singing in clubs wherever we went, like Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Cairo."
"I thought I was going to be a big star. I was really good with audiences. But at a certain point, my being the perpetual ingénue faded out, and being 4’ 11”, I was never quite the leading lady type and I didn’t know what to do with myself and was unhappy and fell into teaching. At a party, I talked to a teacher from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York who said 'Why don’t you teach?' I started teaching musical theater there, and eight years later, I struck out on my own. I started teaching everything."
continued…
