Sounds of Berklee

Berklee alumnus Nate Morton '94 has been the drummer in the house band for NBC's hit TV show The Voice since it first aired in 2011, appeared on the Rock Star: Supernova and Rock Star: INXS reality shows, toured nationally in the American Idol band, and has shared the stage with Cher, Natalie Cole, Paul Stanley, and Chaka Khan. Interview, production and photo by Curtis Killian

Student Zaid Tabani talks about his journey as a rapper, and the peaks and valleys that led him to the release of his new record, Bos Angeles.

After 30 years of teaching the "best student improvisers on the planet," to use his term, Berklee professor of ensemble Hal Crook '71 is retiring soon and celebrating this week with a concert featuring some of his most remarkable former students. A trombonist, Crook will perform with Grammy Award–winner Esperanza Spalding '05, drummer Antonio Sanchez '97, guitarist Lionel Loueke '04, pianist Leo G...

By Curtis Killian | February 10, 2016 When Donny McCasslin '88 and his jazz quartet were enlisted by David Bowie H'99 to record as the backing band for what became his 25th and final album Blackstar, stylized as ★, the Grammy-nominated saxophonist, composer and bandleader was ready for the moment. "David encouraged us to try anything and everything that we heard," McCaslin says on the three weeks...

In this edition of Inside Berklee, McElroy both discusses and sings spirituals, joined by students from the Jubilee Spirit Ensemble that she leads at Berklee.

After a successful international career as a funk artist, Prince Charles Alexander transformed himself into a first-call engineer and producer, working with artists such as Notorious B.I.G., Alicia Keys, and P. Diddy. He had a Grammy-winning career and more than 40 platinum and gold certifications from the RIAA when he decided he wanted to alter course again and become an educator. Alexander chose...

After Berklee and The Boston Conservatory begun discussing plans to merge last year, it quickly became clear that synergies between the two institutions had been building for many years. Students, faculty, and alumni have often collaborated, and several faculty members can say that they have worked for both Berklee and the Conservatory. One such example is Jonathan Bailey Holland, who is currently...

In this edition of Inside Berklee, Werner discusses how to break these negative patterns and how his institute can help musicians do this by teaching them to play from the deepest parts of themselves and rediscover their connection to the music.

In this special edition of Inside Berklee, DioGuardi talks to Bonnie Hayes, chair of the Songwriting Department, about coming back to her art, interacting with young musicians, and what it takes to succeed in the industry today.

LISTEN: The Nth Power just released their debut album "Abundance" and can be seen this Friday, November 27 at The Sinclair. Earlier this year, we had a conversation with bandleader, drummer and #BerkleeAlumni Nikki Glaspie '05 about life after Berklee, including her five years touring the globe with Beyoncé and the formation of her new band. For more, visit thenthpowermusic.com

Grammy nominee and jazz accordionist Victor Prieto graduated from Berklee in 2002. Born in Spain, the New York City-based composer and bandleader writes music that combines jazz, classical, tango, Celtic, and Brazilian music with sounds steeped in his Galician heritage. This episode features Prieto in a duo setting with fellow Berklee alumnus and saxophonist Chris Cheek, who plays soprano on "Chat...

May 8, 2014 | Rob Hochschild Singer-songwriter Arielle Vakni, from Santa Cruz, California is one of more 900 musicians graduating from Berklee in May 2014. She's demonstrated great talent as a composer and performer in acoustic and electronic genres, and many of her originals fuse those disparate influences. Vakni came to Berklee after receiving a Fullerton Heritage Festival Award for vocal jazz i...

April 25, 2014 | Adam Renn Olenn Alyosha Barreiro '01 is a composer and producer of electronic and dance music who has performed at clubs and festivals on both sides of the Atlantic to crowds of more than 100,000 people. With several No. 1 hits on Latin American music charts and a large following, Barreiro has been tapped as the producer of Beat Trend, an internationally syndicated radio show in w...

April 17, 2014 | Adam Renn Olenn Formed in 2009 as the house band for a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Evolfo Doofeht is loaded with Berklee alumni, including Kai Sorensen ’13 on trumpet and vocals, Julian Moore ’13 on drums, Rafferty Swink ’13 on keyboards, Ronnie Lanzilotta on bass, and Matthew Gibbs on guitar and vocals. The band has spent the last few years performing at colleges,...

March 27, 2014 | Rob Hochschild Guitarist Matthew Stevens has built his reputation on and brought his unique sound to recordings by many of jazz's leading young artists—including Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Ben Williams, Walter Smith III, and Jacky Terrasson—but his forthcoming debut on Concord Records promises to have as great an impact as any of the many albums he has appeared on. According t...

March 25, 2014 | Adam Renn Olenn Sarah Sharp and Masumi Jones, 1997 alumnae, are the Berklee half of the Jitterbug Vipers, a magnificently weird quartet from Austin, Texas. The group specializes in ‘viper jazz,’ an idiosyncratic hybrid genre that recalls country, swing, and languid afternoons in smoky bars. Fusing Americana roots music and wry wordplay, the Jitterbug Vipers aim to employ a bygone...

March 13, 2014 | Rob Hochschild The Field Effect is a rock quartet featuring four Berklee alumni with a passion for well-crafted songs filled with introspective lyrics, infectious melodies, and ferocious rhythms. The song featured in this podcast, "Ogunquit, ME," earned the band a Boston Music Award for Song of the Year in 2013. The band, which formed in 2011, is composed of guitarist and frontman...

March 7, 2014 | Adam Renn Olenn Associate professor of guitar Thaddeus Hogarth ’88 has authored Funk-Rock/R&B Guitar Soloing, two popular courses for Berklee Online, and taught more than 120,000 students in his Introduction to Guitar course on Coursera, for which he was featured on NBC’s Today Show. But Hogath—who was born in England and raised in St. Kitts, West Indies—has a recording and perform...

February 28, 2014 | Rob Hochschild The Berklee Middle Eastern Festival not only provides an annual glimpse into the music of an important cultural region, it demonstrates how that area's music can be fused with other contemporary styles in innovative ways. This year's festival, The Music of Armenia: Dark Eyes/New Eyes, brings guest artist Sato Moughalian of Alexandria, Egypt, to perform with her P...

Saxophonist Donald Harrison talks to Berklee about his upbringing in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, and important musical relationships in his life.

Berklee in Atlanta, Berklee’s annual spring break trip to Atlanta, GA, celebrated its fifth year anniversary in March 2015. The 20 students who participated that year had an opportunity to work in one of Atlanta’s most reputable recording studios (PatchWerk Recording Studios) to create an original song from start to finish in a span of only six hours. “Give It Up for the ATL” is a theme song one m...

Rob Hochschild | February 14, 2014 Fate & the Family Band is the kind of group that gets its audiences dancing, so it's clear why the producers at student-run Heavy Rotation Records decided to make "Sweet Creole Queen" the first cut on the just-released Dorm Sessions 9. Fronted by Virginia-bred student vocalist Emma Hern, Fate & the Family Band make music that fuses blues, rock, and soul. Fate & t...

Adam Renn Olenn | January 23, 2014 Originally from Falkirk, Scotland, Jason Lim ’13 is a polymath in the finest Berklee tradition. An accomplished violinist, guitarist, drummer, inventor, and recording engineer, he is equally comfortable on both sides of the sound board and soldering iron. Lim distinguished himself at Berklee as part of the Berklee Interdisciplinary Arts Institute, where he travel...

Rob Hochschild | January 21, 2014 Argentinian composer and pianist Guillermo Klein '94 makes music that is "occasionally Ellingtonian, occasionally classical, and always beautiful," according to PopMatters. Klein has led his own big bands and small combos since graduating from Berklee and released several lauded discs for Sunnyside Records. Klein's first move, post-Berklee, was to form a 17-piece...

Adam Renn Olenn | January 8, 2014 Connecticut native Samantha Preis ’10 began playing the piano at a young age, but didn’t care much for practicing the music she was given. Instead, she preferred to write her own songs, a habit which led her to Berklee’s summer Songwriting Workshop, and from there to a songwriting scholarship. A veteran traveler who has studied and performed in Greece and Israel,...