Sounds of Berklee

By Berklee Office of Communications March 31, 2008 This month's Sounds of Berklee track features the acoustic alternative folk music of student group Annie Lynch and the Beekeepers. "Dirty Laundry" is an excellent example of the band's unusual arrangements, which feature upright bass, cello, mandolin, banjo, accordion, and the occasional saw solo.

By Berklee Office of Communications February 28, 2008 Listen to "Lion's Gate," a song by the SFJAZZ Collective, an all-star ensemble featuring some of the jazz world's finest performers and composers, including Berklee alumni Miguel Zenon, Joe Lovano, and Matt Penman.

By Berklee Office of Communications January 28, 2008 "Homie," a song by a great student band—the Peasantry—is this month's podcast. The Peasantry is one of several student groups featured on the new disc from student-run Heavy Rotation Records and performing in the label's CD release concert this month.

By Adam Renn Olenn May 21, 2014 Deni Hlavinka and Chris West had never met at Berklee, even though they’d been collaborating for years. These songwriters found each other online and mailed half-finished mp3s back and forth to finish each other's songs. Together, they make up the Western Den. At Berklee they added musicians to the lineup, and perform regularly with Tim Reynolds on violin and Ro Row...

By Rob Hochschild May 23, 2014 Founded in 2012 by Berklee student vocalist and composer Raquel Rivera, Amethyst is a septet that puts forth music influenced by contemporary jazz, acoustic pop, and various Latin genres. Rivera's bright and smooth vocal style is an ear-catching vehicle for her wide-ranging originals and the band's collaborative cover arrangements. Rivera, who is focusing on honing h...

By Kimberly Ashton June 2, 2014 Esther Rojas left a successful career as a performer in Colombia to come to Berklee in 2012. An established bassist who gigged with national acts like María Mulata, Rojas was playing in eight groups and had plenty of work. But she felt stuck and wanted to pursue a different path. She's now a fifth-semester student in the contemporary writing and production program a...

By Rob Hochschild June 9, 2014 Sarah McKenzie is a pianist, vocalist, and composer who graduated from Berklee a few weeks ago. A native of Melbourne, Australia, McKenzie was a backup vocalist for Michael Bublé on his Call Me Irresponsible tour, and was the opening act for Grammy-winning trumpeter Chris Botti in 2011. Her second album, Close Your Eyes, won the 2012 ARIA award for Best Jazz Album. P...

PODCAST: Lindsey Grey '04 By Adam Renn Olenn June 17, 2014 When Lindsey Grey graduated from Berklee in 2004, she was arguably the darling of Boston’s hip-hop scene, singing hooks for several bands and collaborating as a songwriter with a wide variety of artists. She then took several years away from the music business to get married and raise her young son, and has returned in yet another form–ent...

By Adam Renn Olenn June 17, 2014 Brockton, Massachusetts native Mike Flanagan ’08 started playing saxophone when he was ten years old and never looked back. A high-school regular on Boston’s south shore jazz scene, Flanagan won a scholarship to Berklee and almost immediately began touring internationally. Flanagan has grown his career in multiple directions at once–as an in-demand saxophonist, as...

Matt Nakoa '06 November 14, 2014 Before winning a scholarship to Berklee, Matt Nakoa ’06 was a goat farmer in central New York state. In addition to his talent with animals, Nakoa is an accomplished classical pianist who discovered a love of singing and writing songs, and was selected to collaborate with Grammy-winner Kathy Mattea during her residence at Berklee. Nakoa’s 2014 album A Dozen Other L...

By Curtis Killian November 26, 2014 After studying electronic music production at Berklee, Aruna Abrams got her start in EDM recording for internationally recognized producers like Roger Shah and Cosmic Gate. An accomplished singer, songwriter, DJ, and producer, she has penned a chart-topping single recored by Miley Cyrus, collaborated with dance mainstays like Armin van Buuren and Ferry Corsten,...

By Curtis Killian December 8, 2014 Self-described "Pennsyltucky-fried sister-folk" band the Hello Strangers, led by Berklee graduate Larissa Chace Smith '01 and her sister, Brechyn Chace, has been on the rise since its 2006 formation in Austin, Texas and subsequent move to rural Pennsylvania. With a catalogue of original music comprised of American folk traditions and modern indie rock, the band w...

Inside Berklee: Don Was (Part 2) by Berklee College of Music

By Rob Hochschild October 18, 2013 With influences that range from Louis Armstrong to Radiohead's Thom Yorke, trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah '05 is not only on a jazz innovator, he's a musician whose unique vision makes him a must-listen pioneer no matter what you think your preferences are. His music combines New Orleans stomp, indie rock guitar, unforgettable melodies, and social commen...

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...

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 Wi...

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,...

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 Las...

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 busines...

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 per...

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 Ame...

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 the...

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 stud...

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. Fr...

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 And...