Sounds of Berklee

Rob Hochschild | February 1, 2013 After honing his chops as a teenager in the jazz clubs of Philadelphia, alto saxophonist Jaleel Shaw studied at Berklee on a full-tuition scholarship. He graduated with degrees in music education and performance and has orchestrated an impressive and multifaceted career as a bandleader, composer, sideman, and educator. Shaw is a member of the Roy Haynes Quartet an...

January 24, 2013 Guitarist and composer Stephane Wrembel ’02 learned to play in the style of Django Reinhardt in the gypsy camps of the French countryside before coming to Berklee. His command of the gypsy-inflected jazz and mastery on the guitar earned him the opportunity to score Woody Allen’s Academy Award-winning film Midnight in Paris. Wrembel recently performed at the Oscars, and is currentl...

Rob Hochschild | January 22, 2013 Drummer Wil Tecla and pianist Kevin Clark were first-year students when they met at Berklee during the 2011-12 school year. The two musicians shared an interest in jazz and hip-hop music, and wasted littled time forming a band to explore their interest in composition and playing. They arrived at a band name—English Tom in the Bookstore—whose origin and meaning rem...

Adam Olenn | December 20, 2012 2007 alumnus Joe Matzzie is a Los Angeles-based film and television composer, an accomplished classical guitarist, and an aficionado of early music. His band Moat Jumper combines medieval and Renaissance instruments–things like the hurdy gurdy, crumhorn, sackbut, and bladder pipe–with modern recording technology to produce songs with a timeless, esoteric quality. Moa...

December 19, 2012 | Rob Hochschild A widely influential jazz guitarist, alumnus John Scofield is bringing one of his most exciting groups, Überjam, to Berklee to help ring in the new year. Scofield's band will kick off NPR's annual worldwide jazz broadcast of Toast of the Nation, providing one of the highlights of this year's First Night Boston festival. "Ideofunk," a Scofield composition, was rec...

December 11, 2012 2003 alumna and faculty member Christiane Karam is the champion of world music at Berklee. She directs the Balkan choir, the Middle Eastern Fusion ensemble, and is the founder and director of the annual Berklee Middle Eastern Festival. Her new record, Eastern Tapestries, blends musical vocabularies from India to the Mediterranean with an emphasis on Balkan and Middle Eastern styl...

by Curtis Killian | August 21, 2015 Avers, from Richmond Virginia, offers an ethereal swirl of psychedelic pop, shoegaze and garage rock. Formed with Head and The Heart's Tyler Williams on drums, and James Mason, James Lloyd Hodges, Charlie Glenn, and alumni Alexandra Spalding '09 (Professional Music) and Adrian Olsen '08 (Music Business & Management / MP&E) swapping between bass, guitar, and keyb...

Berklee Alumni Advice - Tower of Power Vocalist Ray Greene '96 by Berklee College of Music

Berklee Alumni Advice - Violinist Ben Powell '09 by Berklee College of Music

November 19, 2012 Fifth-semester Berklee student Bryce Milano began playing the mandolin when he was 9 years old, with an early interest in bluegrass and American folk music. A Philadelphia native, he began exploring genres from around the world, from gypsy jazz to Bulgarian folk. As a teenager, Milano performed around the U.S., sitting in with artists such as David Grisman and Darol Anger. A few...

Sara Rachele, "Listen, Judas" by Berklee College of Music

In this episode, Larry Watson talks about his work at Harvard, the resilient messages of African-American music, and the power of shedding light on secrets.

Trumpeter Sean Jones joined the Berklee faculty as chair of brass last year, adding to an already very long list of striking careeer accomplishments as a recording artist, educator, and artistic director of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh jazz orchestras. He has performed and/or recorded with Joe Lovano, Jimmy Heath, and Nancy Wilson, as well as with Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter i...

By Adam Renn Olenn | October 26, 2012 The world music supergroup Women of the World is almost entirely comprised of Berklee students and alumnae, including Ayumi Ueda '10, Annette Philip '09, Giorgia Renosto '09, Hinako Sato '2011, Sara Cristal Peña-Coffin '11, Noriko Terada '09, Sue Buzzard '10, and Kazuyo Kuriya '10. With members representing Japan, India, Italy, Haiti, Mexico, and the United St...

By Rob Hochschild | November 4, 2012 Bent Knee is a Berklee band that builds its sound on orchestral textures and haunting vocals, delivering a dynamic sound and presence. In addition to its original music, Bent Knee puts its stamp on other artists' tunes, creating warped and distorted arrangements. The seven-member group will be featured on Berklee's student-run record label, Heavy Rotation Recor...

October 19, 2012 Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Juana Aquerreta blends her musical roots with contemporary styles. The seventh-semester harp principal has focused much of her time recently on singing and songwriting, and the result is a set of beautiful tunes recorded in Berklee studios. Majoring in contemporary writing and production, Aquerreta is fronting one of several students bands at the B...

By Rob Hochschild | October 9, 2012 Larry Monroe has been a force at Berklee since the 1960s. Hailing from a small town in Vermont, he enrolled at Berklee as a saxophonist and later joined the faculty. As the years went by, he rose through the ranks, as an academic chair, dean, and, most recently as vice president of academic affairs working to establish Berklee's campus in Valencia. With programs...

By Adam Renn Olenn | October 1, 2012 2009 alumnus Keenan O’Meara moved to New York City right after graduation. There he teamed up with fellow Berklee graduates Owen Ross, Bryan Percivall, Marie Kim, Chris Holdridge, and Megan Lui. Together these alumni have been touring throughout the northeast in support of O’Meara’s debut EP, Mania. O’Meara and his fellow alumni perform together as The Spindle...

By Adam Renn Olenn | September 11, 2012 2000 alumnus Kip Jones has traveled extensively throughout North America, South America, Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, absorbing a huge range of musical idioms. This itinerant fiddler has used his Berklee education to fuse these diverse musical experiences with material he studied at Berklee—artists like J.S. Bach, the Delta blues, and Steve Reich—into...

By Rob Hochschild | September 5, 2012 Matt Savage, a 20-year old jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, entered Berklee in the fall of 2009 at the age of 17, and will graduate in December 2012. He has studied with many eminent professors at Berklee, including JoAnne Brackeen, Terri Lyne Carrington, Hal Crook, Dave Samuels, Ray Santisi and Darren Barrett. Savage also tours as a solo artist and as th...

By Adam Olenn | August 28, 2012 Latvian flutist Ilona Kudina '03 studied at the Latvian Academy of Music before coming to Berklee, and has since toured throughout North America and Europe. The founder and leader of the Amber flute quartet, her 2010 release Nothing but Illusion features fellow alumnus Vardan Ovespian, Berklee faculty member Greg Hopkins, Akili Jamal Haynes, and legendary drummer Bi...

By Rob Hochschild | July 20, 2012 Saxophonist Daniel Rotem studied at Israel's Thelma Yellin High School for Arts, Shtricker Conservatory, and Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music before enrolling at Berklee in 2011. Rotem has performed with a long list of jazz stalwarts, including Dave Liebman, Reggie Workman, Lionel Loueke, George Garzone, Scott Colley, John Taylor, and Michael Blake. He...

By Rob Hochschild | July 10, 2012 Raised in the United Kingdom and Canada, Wilsen (formerly known as Tamsin) describes her music as influenced by the "warm folk sounds of Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake, with a dash of Feist." The Brooklyn-based songwriter is preparing to release her first album, Sirens. Wilsen performs as part of Berklee Summer in the City at Passim on July 12 and at Kendall Square...

By Adam Olenn | June 29, 2012 According to longtime Boston Globe music critic Steve Morse, 2011 alumna Shea Rose is "that rare artist who can bridge diverse styles such as soul, funk, rock, rap, and jazz—and bring her unique stamp to each." Rose has won awards ranging from R&B/Soul/Urban Contemporary Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards to the SESAC Performance Activity award, and was eve...

By Adam Renn Olenn | October 5, 2012 Berklee College of Music, Heavy Rotation Records, and Berkleemusic.com present their sixth annual CMJ Music Marathon showcase of alumni and student artists, Friday, October 19, at 92YTribeca. To learn more about the artists, click here. The showcase will feature artists in a wide range of genres, including acts like: Shea Rose, with "S on my Chest" Measure, wit...