FGM Turns 200! with Margaret Halbig

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 200: FGM Turns 200! with Margaret Halbig

Looking for a way to listen to diverse creators and to support equity in the arts? Tune in weekly to For Good Measure!

In this week’s episode, we celebrate For Good Measure's 200th episode with the start of a mini-series called FGM Turns 200!, where we talk to Ensemble for These Times' members and past guest artists. Today, we are joined by E4TT's pianist Margaret Halbig, who we spoke to in April 2025. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Margaret Halbig, check her out here: https://www.e4tt.org/margaret_halbig.html.

This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, SF Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and generous donors like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/episodes/18920968

Co-Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-Producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Christy Xu

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. This week, For Good Measure, turns 200! To celebrate 200 episodes, we interrupt our Da Capo Conversations [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] to present a mini-series where we'll talk with E4TT members and past guest artists. Today, we are joined by E4TT pianist Margaret Halbig.

Nanette McGuinness  00:40

Margaret, thank you so much for agreeing to do the podcast with me, of course. So for those of you who don't know, Margaret is the wonderful pianist, collaborative pianist for E4TT. Can you tell us a little bit about your path and your career to becoming a pianist?

Margaret Halbig  01:00

Sure, I started piano lessons when I was six years old, and we had just moved to a new home. The house that I was born in was in a different part of town, and then we moved and we had a piano. My parents actually got rid of that piano a couple of years ago, but it's, it was, it was a very beat up. It definitely put in its dues, but that's what I learned on and we had a piano. My dad played a little bit, and I was starting to teach myself how to play it because we had one of the readers digest books, and the one that I was reading off of was the children's song book, because it had numbers attached to the notes. And I was teaching myself I knew that six plus meant a sharp for was F and so I had, my mom thought, no, she needs to learn how to she needs to learn the right way. So my new neighbor across the street was a piano teacher, thinking about getting back into it. She had, I don't think she was really teaching at the time, but she was my first piano teacher, and I studied with her for five years. And every day, or no, not every day, every Monday, I would take my $5 bill across the street and give my neighbor $5 for my piano lesson. And she also had a daughter my age, so we would often hang out afterward. And I thought that was also fun. [laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  02:48

It sounds great.

Margaret Halbig  02:49

So then I after that, I moved to a new teacher in town who got me ready to audition for music schools. I wasn't sure that is exactly what I wanted to do. But I did it, and I loved it. I I went to University of Evansville in my hometown, and studied with a really great teacher, Mrs. Fiedler, who is still there teaching. And then I did my Master's in Kansas City, at the University of Kansas City conservatory, University of Missouri, Kansas City conservatory, UMKC, and then I started my doctorate at the University of Kansas with Bob Koenig, who's my teacher. And I thought I wanted to continue solo performance, but when I met Bob, he was teaching mostly collaborative piano, and I thought Bob was the biggest rock star ever, and I just wanted to be like him. So I made sure that I could still study solo piano, because that was very important to me. But then I started dabbling in chamber music.

Nanette McGuinness  04:06

The dark side.

Margaret Halbig  04:07

Yeah. [laughing]

Nanette McGuinness  04:08

[laughs]

Margaret Halbig  04:09

The first thing he gave me was the Franck Sonata, and I was hooked ever since. So at that point, I decided I don't really want to study much solo piano. This is way more fun and the repertoire is way better. No offense to solo pianist out there. So that brought me I finished. So actually, Bob got the job in Santa Barbara. UC Santa Barbara, so there were two students of his that went with him to Santa Barbara and studied, finished my doctorate there with him. Then I got to the Bay Area, because I had a very good friend who lived here in the Bay Area that I would come up and visit all the time. And I just loved, I loved everything about San Francisco, the bay. Area, all the sites, all the things to do, all the music it was I just thought, I just need to live here. And so after I finished, actually, I finished my doctorate, like a month. Technically, after I moved to the Bay Area, I got the paperwork and everything. Had to send it to all of my professors to sign and, yeah, it was all official, I think two months after I moved to the Bay Area, wow, yeah, and I've been here ever since.

Nanette McGuinness  05:34

Yeah, we're glad you moved up here, if you'd stayed in the Midwest, or if you stayed in Santa Barbara, I never would have met you. Yes, yeah, and now you've been at the conservatory for a long, long time.

Margaret Halbig  05:52

Yes, I started working, I believe, in January of 2012 I moved to the Bay Area in 2011 and I got I started working there, I think in January of 2012 I had a friend who I was working with opera, Santa Barbara, when I was living in Santa Barbara, and we did an outreach program. And one of the singers that they hired for that program was commuting, not really commuting, but would come down for a month or so from San Francisco, and we would do the program. And she had just recently graduated from the Conservatory, so she was, she said, you have to, you have to get in there. You I know the, you know the person in charge of hiring all the pianists, and so I'm going to give him your name, and the rest is history. I am so grateful for her. I'm grateful to her for recommending me and getting my foot in the door there, yes. 

Nanette McGuinness  06:50

Yeah, that's wonderful, yeah. And now, what's your role there? Your title there?

Margaret Halbig  06:56

My title is Associate Chair of the Voice Department. I'm also a principal Voice Coach. And I also play for instrumentalists, which doesn't really have a title, I guess, but I do that too.

Nanette McGuinness  07:09

You do a lot there. That's really what I wanted to bring out. [laughing] That's terrific, yeah. So tell me about playing with E4TT.

Margaret Halbig  07:22

I love playing with E4TT, because, you know, as much as I do at the Conservatory, I don't get to do enough chamber music. And that's exactly what I get to do in E4TT. I get to play in a lot of different configurations. Of course, with voice, with cello, with violin, and with any configuration of that quartet and other instruments, too are often guests. So it really exercises my first love of chamber music.

Nanette McGuinness  08:01

That's so great. You know, I didn't know that, by the way, but... [laughs]

Margaret Halbig  08:03

It is. As much as I have fallen into the vocal coaching world. My first love is chamber music and instrumental music, and so I'm grateful that I am playing with E4TT, because I get to play that kind of music.

Nanette McGuinness  08:25

Yeah, and new music, you're quite the new music Maven.

Margaret Halbig  08:30

Thank you. [laughing] Never thought about that, but I do enjoy new music. It just, you know, I would say most musicians, probably, I don't know if it's most, there's, I'm sure many studies, I think you have to be very right brained to be I think most, a lot of musicians consider themselves to be right brained. I am extremely left brained. And I think new music and left brain people mesh very well, because there's definitive answers, there's very specific wants and needs, and the composer, the composer, just writes a lot more of what they exactly want. And I love that. As a musician, I love not having to make the decision. I'm a Libra also, and we like balance and symmetry, and sometimes it's hard for us to make decisions, because we see all the different sides. And so the more particular I'm probably going to regret saying this. The more particular a composer is, sometimes, the better. It just is easier for me.

Nanette McGuinness  09:48

Making choices. I mean, you're talking to a professional ditherer here.

Margaret Halbig  09:52

[laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  09:53

Although in music making, I actually don't have that same, I guess, aspect to myself. But normally making decisions can be really hard.

Margaret Halbig  10:02

Yes!

Nanette McGuinness  10:03

But yeah.

Margaret Halbig  10:04

[laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  10:05

Well, and just, you know, the... the meters and the counting are quite different in New Music compared to the rest of you know Mozart or whatever.

Margaret Halbig  10:18

Yes, absolutely.

Nanette McGuinness  10:18

We're nary a seven will appear.

Margaret Halbig  10:23

Right exactly. And I love seven. I love five. I feel like my life is in those meters a lot of the time.

Nanette McGuinness  10:31

Yeah, certainly the stuff you play for us and play well, by the way. So yeah. So looking forward, not just with E4TT, but in general, what do you have coming up that's exciting or that you want to share with us? Far distant, coming soon?Anything.

Margaret Halbig  10:51

Well, I'm looking forward to the E4TT tour in September.

Nanette McGuinness  10:56

Me too. [laughs]

Margaret Halbig  10:56

I'm very much looking forward to that. Just I'm looking forward to the concerts, but I'm also just looking forward to the camaraderie between the three of us, me and you and Megan. So I'm really looking forward to that. I'm also this summer, I'm doing something new. I'm going to be teaching and coaching at the Taos Opera Institute, TOI in the Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico. I've never been to New Mexico, and this is my first time working in this program, so I'm very much looking forward to that as well.

Nanette McGuinness  11:36

...be beautiful, won't it?

Margaret Halbig  11:37

It will. I'm so thrilled. Yes, everyone says it's gorgeous.

Nanette McGuinness  11:42

Yeah, yeah, it is. So those are wonderful things. And yes, I'm I love the camaraderie in the group. It's just one of the joys of chamber music that you're up close and personal with a couple, two, three, not too many more musicians and really collaborating at a very deep level. Yes, and we have a great bunch of people to collaborate with. So.

Margaret Halbig  12:10

Yes, I agree. [laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  12:12

All right. Well, anything else?

Margaret Halbig  12:16

I don't think so. [laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  12:18

All right. Thank you so much for doing this. It was a pleasure.

Margaret Halbig  12:23

Thank you. It was my pleasure.

Nanette McGuinness  12:24

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Margaret Halbig, for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at www.E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and generous donors like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to Co-producer and Audio Engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]