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Berklee College of Music
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Berklee College of Music, founded in 1945, is an independent music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It has an enrollment of approximately 4,000 students and a 2008 faculty of approximately 500. Berklee offers an accredited four-year baccalaureate degree or diploma.
lee was founded by Lawrence Berk and was originally named Schillinger House of Music, after his teacher Joseph Schillinger.
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Berklee College of Music, founded in 1945, is an independent music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It has an enrollment of approximately 4,000 students and a 2008 faculty of approximately 500. Berklee offers an accredited four-year baccalaureate degree or diploma.
History
Berklee was founded by Lawrence Berk and was originally named Schillinger House of Music, after his teacher Joseph Schillinger. The original purpose of the school was to highlight the Schillinger System of musical harmony and composition. After expansion of the school's curriculum in 1954, Berk changed the name to Berklee School of Music after his son Lee Berk. When the school received its accreditation in 1973, the name was changed to Berklee College of Music. Lee Berk never formally studied music, instead focusing on Business and Real Estate Law; however, his daughter Lucy Berk is an alumna of the college.
At the time of its founding, almost all music schools focused primarily on classical music. The original mission of Berklee was to provide formal training in jazz, rock, and other contemporary music not available at other music schools.
Admission
While there are no hard and fast rules regarding admission qualifications, applicants typically have a minimum two years of music study on their primary instrument and/or significant practical experience in musical performance, a diploma from an accredited secondary school with satisfactory marks in college-preparatory courses. The current listed acceptance rate on The College Board is now 34%. In 2003, Berkleemusic, the online branch of Berklee College of Music, was founded.
Demographics and statistics
Berklee has a large percentage of undergraduate students from outside the U.S.—23 percent—representing more than 70 countries. Women comprise 26.9 percent of the student body. Domestic minority enrollment is African-American, 6.8 percent; Latino, 6.5 percent; Asian-American, 3.3 percent. The five countries that supply the largest percentage of foreign students to Berklee are Japan, Korea, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. The school's current president, Roger H. Brown, was installed in 2004.
Berklee offers three full time semesters per year: Fall, Spring, and Summer. The Fall and Spring semesters are 16 weeks in length, whereas the Summer semester is compacted into 12 weeks.
There are 230 acoustic pianos and more than 1,000 guitar principals at Berklee. The average class size is 11. The holdings of the college's Stan Getz Media Center and Library include more than 20,000 recordings, 20,000 books, 17,000 musical scores, and 6,000 lead sheets.
Facilities
- 17 buildings in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood
- 3 dormitories in the Back Bay and Fenway-Kenmore neighborhoods
- A practice and rehearsal building in Boston's Allston neighborhood
- An Internet radio station: The BIRN - Berklee Internet Radio Network. Five channels of music which broadcast Special Events, Interviews, Concerts, Clinics, Alumni Music and International Music.
- The Berklee Performance Center - Housed in the renovated, historic Fenway Theater, the Berklee Performance Center seats 1,200 in its main hall and facilitates over 130 student and faculty concerts each year. Its direct link with the college's recording studios and video taping facilities allows professional quality recording of events and concerts. In addition, there are approximately 75 outside professional shows, special seminars, and clinics featuring important members of the music community which are held at the Performance Center throughout the year. The Berklee Performance Center is located at 136 Massachusetts Avenue, near the intersection with Boylston Street. Many notable musicians have gotten their start playing on this stage, such as John Mayer, who attended the college during the 90s and who still visits the BPC once every few years to play and hold discussions with aspiring musicians.
- Four additional recital halls equipped with a variety of sound reinforcement systems, and Cafe 939, a state-of-the-art, all-ages, student-run music venue and coffee house.
- 12 Recording Studios
Majors
Athletics
Since Berklee is a music school, athletics are not a focus of campus life. If students want to play sports, they can sign up for NCAA Division III athletics at Emerson College due to Berklee's membership in the Professional Arts Consortium. Students are also offered discounted or no-cost memberships at some nearby fitness centers, like the Boston Kung Fu Tai Chi institute and the Tennis and Racquet club, as part of Berklee's LiveWell program.
In February 2006, several students organized the Berklee Ice Cats, an ice hockey team named after former Massachusetts team, the Worcester Ice Cats, that is Berklee's first official athletic institution. The Ice Cats first competed in the New England Senior Hockey League in the 2006–2007 season. It will begin its first official intercollegiate season in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) in 2007-2008. The team practices in Cambridge. Berklee's debut into the world of intercollegiate sports was on September 16, 2006, against Emerson College for the inaugural Boylston Cup, emerging victorious.
In 2007, the Ice Cats signed on former Boston Bruin and two-time All-Star John McKenzie as head coach.
Alumni
Many alumni of the college are notable figures in the music industry. Some notable artists that have studied at Berklee include multi talented producer/musician Camila Grey of the band Uh Huh Her, producer Quincy Jones, pianists Bruce Hornsby, Keith Jarrett, Hiromi Uehara, and Diana Krall, guitarists John Petrucci, Steve Vai, Rivers Cuomo, Ian Thornley, Kevin Eubanks, Shane Gibson, John Mayer, critically acclaimed session drummer Steve Hass, bassist and keyboardist Matt Wachter, bassist John Myung and drummer Mike Portnoy (both of whom, along with John Petrucci, are part of the progressive metal band Dream Theater), songwriters Aimee Mann, Paula Cole, Gavin DeGraw, Tracy Bonham, and Melissa Etheridge, film scorers Alan Silvestri and Howard Shore, jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, New York composer-arranger and producer Rob Mounsey, Danish producer and jazz drummer Thomas Blachman and electronic music/film composer "BT" (Brian Transeau). Two members of the hard rock band Aerosmith, guitarist Brad Whitford and drummer Joey Kramer, are also Berklee alumni. Katelyn Clampett, a singer-songwriter currently attends Berklee. Trey Parker, the co-creator of the animated series South Park, attended Berklee with an interest in film scoring, but transferred to University of Colorado to complete his degree. Guitarist, producer and graphic artist Hal Lester, Berklee alum, attended with an interest in performance, then created many magazine & cd covers around the world. Juan Luis Guerra, famous merengue/bachata singer from the Dominican Republic is also an alum. He is arguably one of the most famous and most popular merengue singers in the world. Argentinian bass player and solo artist Pedro Aznar, Wang Lee Hom, a very successful Taiwanese American singer songwriter, attended a semester at Berklee in the Professional Music program to further his studies. Eru, K-pop singer. Ted Lo, one of Hong Kong's top jazz pianist and successful record producer, arranger and composer graduated in 1976. Ted also gave Berklee Associate Professor Toru “Tiger” Okoshi his nickname. Other alumni include Jack Evans of Reverend Zen, Joe Guese, Ben Romans, Ethan Mentzer, Joey Zehr, and Kyle Patrick, all of The Click Five, alongside Meekal Hassan, founder and lead guitarist of the revolutionary Pakistani group Meekal Hassan Band. Acclaimed hip hop/pop music producer, JR Rotem earned a degree in Jazz Composition from Berklee, and Konami (BEMANI) Famous composer Sota Fujimori. Brendan Small, creator of Adult Swim show Metalocalypse, also graduated from Berklee.
Some people in the music industry have been awarded honorary doctorates from Berklee including Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan fame, the Dominican pianist Michel Camilo, songwriter Melissa Etheridge, singer Chaka Khan, The Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, and the inventor of the Moog synthesizer, Robert Moog. Bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs was awarded an honorary doctorate on March 18, 2008, during a performance at the Grand Ole Opry.
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