Sounds Of Berklee

About This Page By Lesley Mahoney July 8, 2013 Guitar professor David Fiuczynski directs Berklee’s Planet MicroJam Institute, which engages in the study of microtonal harmonies that go beyond the 12-tone Western chromatic scale and uses these to create a new musical language. The idea, Fiuczynski says, is to create music that “sounds like a Gauguin painting—a raw, powerful, and extremely colorful mix of Eastern and Western elements. With Berklee’s robust international student population, a large proportion of which brings a non-Western music background, the college is fertile ground for exploring and experimenting with microtonal harmonies and mixing them with other sounds. In this episode of Inside Berklee, Fiuczynski talks about this musical system that captures notes that don’t fall within the 12-tone scale and how Berklee is poised to shape a new frontier. Produced by Lesley Mahoney Engineered and edited by Berklee student Ryan Walsh

AUDIO from Don Was: A Producer's Most Important Lesson About This Page By Rob Hochschild November 7, 2008 Over the four decades he's worked as a record producer, Don Was has worked with artists such as Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, the B-52s, Amos Lee, Ziggy Marley, and the Rolling Stones. He won the 1994 Grammy Award for Producer of the Year and he produced a documentary about the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. Plus, the Detroit native is coleader of Was (Not Was), a band that fuses funk, r&b, rock, soul, pop, dance music, and other styles in a seamless blend that has yielded hits like "Walk the Dinosaur" and "Spy in the House of Love." And then, last month, he spent a week working closely with Berklee's music production and engineering majors. It was an experience that Was said will "recharge" his work as a producer. During his time on campus, Was gave an open clinic for students, staff, and faculty; met individually with student producers; and visited several classes. Was also granted a long, in-depth interv

Great Caesar is a Brooklyn-based collaborative that aims to create music about things that really matter: love, legacy, and the complexity of human relationships. They started as a high school jazz trio in Madison, CT, and kept their musical friendship alive through six years of college, including Berklee College of Music for saxophonist Stephen Chen ’10. In 2010, the band moved to New York City, in the tide of stories and humanity of the Big Apple, they crafted "Don't Ask Me Why." Given audiences’ positive reaction to the song, they approached filmmaker Alex Colby, who created a bold video juxtaposing the civil rights movement of the 1960s with today’s fight for LGBT equality. With big ideas for set pieces, a large cast and sweeping visuals, the video was an undertaking far beyond anything the band had previously attempted, and when an investor dropped out after the project had already begun rolling, the band turned to Kickstarter to and raised over $50,000–far past their goal of $35,000–to complete the

By Rob Hochschild June 23, 2014 The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra (BSFO) is dedicated to composing original scores for silent feature classics, and performing them live-to-picture. Under the leadership of faculty member Sheldon Mirowitz, the BSFO has written and performed new scores for several films, including ones by Buster Keaton and F.W. Murnau. The group will perform Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! twice this month, at the Nantucket Film Festival (June 24) and at the Martha's Vineyard Film Center (June 26). The recipient of a special commendation from the Boston Society of Film Critics, the BSFO has also performed at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts; in Boston’s Emerson/Cutler Majestic Theatre; and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

By Rob Hochschild July 2, 2014 Berklee student Alex Layton is a vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist whose talents in all three areas have generated a group of songs that linger in listeners' minds for both their originality and emotional power. The 25-year-old—who cites among his main influences John Mayer, Eric Clapton, and Coldplay—enrolled at Berklee in fall 2013 after graduating with a business degree from Boston College, where he also played collegiate ice hockey as a goalie. This episode of Sounds of Berklee features a song, "Wheels," that Layton wrote about his battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was diagnosed with the disease last fall and continues to undergo treatment.

By Rob Hochschild July 22, 2014 Berklee alumnus and professor Bernardo Hernandez began playing the cuatro during his childhood in Venezuela. By the age of 15 he had switched to guitar, and was working regularly, appearing on TV shows and touring the Caribbean and Latin America. In the 1980s he graduated from Berklee after studying jazz composition and arranging. He has written arrangements and performed with many prominent artists, including Cachao, Gloria Estefan, Juan Luis Guerra, Bebo and Chucho Valdes, Rubén Blades, Nancy Wilson, and many others. He's performing with his group on July 24, 2014, as part of the Tito Puente Latin Music Series, presented by Berklee, Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, and the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department.

By Nick Balkin June 18, 2012 No other artist in history understood the connections between America's great musical styles—blues, jazz, gospel, and country—better than Ray Charles. On September 21–23, the Berklee American Roots Music Program presents Inspired by Ray: The Ray Charles Symposium, an artistic and academic conference that will study Charles's singular genius and his contributions to American music. The event concludes September 23 on what would have been Charles's 82nd birthday. On Saturday, September 22, a concert celebrating Charles's music will be held at the Berklee Performance Center featuring bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs; jazz guitarist John Scofield; blind singer-songwriter Raul Midón; Grammy-winning composer and Charles's former music director Victor Vanacore; guitarist/songwriter Doug Wamble; and Tracy Bonham and Margaret Glaspy with the Wayfaring Strangers. Though a series of panels, presentations, and concerts, the conference will explore a variety of topics that any serious conside

By Lesley Mahoney April 25, 2012 The Artist captured audiences and critics, earning it the Oscar for Best Picture and the distinction of bringing newfound attention to silent films. The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra has been carving a corner on that market, too. Under the direction of film scoring professor Sheldon Mirowitz, students compose original scores to classic silent movies and perform them live-to-picture on the big screen. The without-a-net element adds another layer to the communal movie-going experience. Each semester Mirowitz's class, Scoring Silent Films, takes on a new project. Students have composed and performed three silent scores: Sunrise (1927), It (1927), and Battleship Potemkin (1925). They debuted at Brookline's Coolidge Corner Theatre, which commissioned the works, and Berklee took Sergei Eisenstein's Potemkin on the road for a packed performance at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center. For Potemkin, five students each conducted the reel they composed, passing the baton between reels, a

By Rob Hochschild April 12, 2012 By the time alumnus Matt McArthur graduated from Berklee, he had a two-pronged goal: to advance independent record-making and revitalize youth music education. So in 2009, he founded The Record Company, a professional, nonprofit recording studio that has proven to be, just as he envisioned, a haven for indie musicians and teenage students looking for immersive studio experiences. Music Production and Engineering Department faculty member Susan Rogers joined the effort, and helped McArthur make The Record Company an important new player in recording and community music education. After a recent visit to The Record Company facility, Tony Brown—radio show host and manager of Berklee's internet radio station, the BIRN—and student DJ Gabriela Jimeno interviewed McArthur and Rogers. Learn more about The Record Company from an excerpt of that interview, edited for the Inside Berklee podcast.

By Lesley Mahoney December 21, 2011 Percussion professor Steve Wilkes fell in love with the sounds of Cape Cod a decade ago when he and his wife began recording what piqued their ears while vacationing in Truro. That would become an annual trip and the hobby would turn serious. Wilkes was awarded a Newbury Comics Faculty Fellowship to pursue this passion, resulting in the Hear Cape Cod Project. From Bourne to Provincetown, Wilkes is gathering a year's worth of field recordings, featuring everything from bird calls to train whistles. Wilkes envisions these audio markers one day serving as a historical comparison to Cape Cod's ever-changing aural landscape. "This project has taught me the connection between being a musician and being a human being in awe of the sounds of our environment," says Wilkes, whose team along with other Berklee alumni includes his wife and bandmate, Ginny Fordham, a singer and major gifts officer at Berklee, and Rob Jaczko, chair of music production and engineering; they serve as the

By Lesley Mahoney August 26, 2011 Photo by Kelly Davidson MP&E professor Susan Rogers teaches students technical skills as well as the science behind the music. Photo by Kelly Davidson Music production and engineering professor Susan Rogers saw much success as a recording engineer, mixer, and producer, working with such artists as Prince, the Jacksons, India.Arie, Barenaked Ladies, and Laurie Anderson. Then she decided it was time for something different and left the music business to pursue life as a scientist, studying psychology and neuroscience, and then music perception and cognition. Rogers has found in Berklee a platform to combine both of these worlds, teaching classes in MP&E as well as music perception and cognition. Hear Rogers talk about her intriguing journey from studio to lab and back again.

By Rob Hochschild March 19, 2011 Sierra Hull's career was already taking off when she landed at Berklee in September 2009. The mandolinist's debut CD was out on Rounder Records and she was on the road more often than not when she accepted a presidential scholarship and enrolled in the college's new artist diploma program. Now in her fourth and final semester at Berklee, Hull recently sat down to talk about her world and the experience of being a Berklee student. She admits to the challenges of balancing career and school, especially during a time of increasing popularity of her music. During this edition of Inside Berklee, you'll hear Hull talk about all of it, and you'll also hear a few selections from her disc, Daybreak.

Ten-time Grammy winner Bobby McFerrin helped kick off Berklee's 2010–2011 school year with a presentation at the college's Opening Day festivities. The vocal improvisation master turned his keynote speech into an interactive experience, encouraging questions from the audience and pulling faculty, staff, and alumni onto the stage to make music with him. http://www.berklee.edu/news/2665/podcast-inside-berklee-bobby-mcferrin

Laurdine Kenneth "Pat" Patrick was an alto and baritone sax player best known for his long association with the progressive musician Sun Ra. After his death, his children—including current Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick—learned their father had left a voluminous collection of photographs, scores, concert programs, teaching notes, and other memorabilia that illustrated not only his own artistic development but the cultural context of musicianship at the time. The deep collection is now at Berklee to be plumbed by faculty and student researchers. In the first Inside Berklee podcast, speakers at the March 24 dedication, including the governor, Berklee president Roger H. Brown, and Africana Studies director Bill Banfield share their thoughts as the Berklee Pat Patrick Tribute Arkestra plays. http://www.berklee.edu/news/2210/podcast-inside-berklee-the-pat-patrick-collectio

Episode 3, September 2007 Sounds of Berklee will have a Spanish flavor this month. The new track comes from Conrad Herwig's Sketches of Spain Y Mas, a collection of the trombonist's Latin jazz arrangements of classic Miles Davis compositions. When you listen to Herwig's arrangement of "Seven Steps to Heaven," you'll be getting just a taste of the BeanTown Jazz Festival's free outdoor concert this Saturday. The afternoon of music presents some of jazz's best artists—Herwig, Mike Stern, Claudia Acuña, and Charles Tolliver, to name a few—on three stages in Boston's historic South End. Come any time between noon and 6 p.m. and be a part of one of Boston's biggest annual music events—last year's festival attracted 60,000 people. And if you move fast, you might still be able to get tickets to Friday night's opening concert—A Celebration of Jazz and Joyce—boasting an extraordinary lineup of jazz greats, including Herbie Hancock, Michel Camilo, Geri Allen, and Joe Lovano. Subscribers to Sounds of Berklee get a fr

August 2007 Latin jazz is coming your way in this month's installment of Sounds of Berklee. We kicked off the new podcast last month with singer/songwriter Madi Diaz, and we promise something a little different every time a new tune goes out. If you subscribe, you'll receive a free track each month recorded by a Berklee-related artist. Listening to musicians in the Berklee community is a great way of learning about where music is headed. This month we feature a composition by student percussionist Marcelo Woloski, who wrote and recorded "Mundo Por Conocer" for The New Old School, the fourth release from Berklee's student-run jazz label, Jazz Revelation Records. "Mundo Por Conocer" features student vocalist Eleonora Bianchini.

July 13, 2007 You could make a case that she's already ahead of Bob Dylan. After all, the iconic songwriter was 22 years old when he played the Newport Folk Festival for the first time in 1963. Fifth-semester student Madi Diaz, who will open for Linda Ronstadt at this year's festival in early August, is only 21.

By Mike Keefe-Feldman November 5, 2013 The musical theater program at Berklee has recently been expanding exponentially, and one of the driving forces behind that expansion is Berklee Voice Department instructor Rene Pfister, who directs many of Berklee’s musical theater productions. This semester, those productions include the Halloween spectacular BPC Screams!, the hit musical Footloose, and a Berklee Goes Broadway cabaret, among others. In addition, musical theater students recently staged a crowd-pleasing flash mob performance at the Prudential Center. Many Berklee students have gone on to successful careers in musical theater. Alex Lacamoire, a 1995 alumnus, has won a Tony Award for the Broadway musical In the Heights, and 2010 graduate Giancarlo de Trizio has been a touring percussionist with the company of the smash musical The Book of Mormon, to cite a few examples. However, Pfister, who is also a Berklee alumnus, demonstrates that an education in musical theater opens up career paths beyond the “B