Berklee college of music notable alumni free#

'Young people are growing up in an immaterial world,' he says. It is now up to Brown to cope with the 'tectonic shock' of the global market, digital music and social networks.

Berklee college of music notable alumni free#

His predecessors witnessed the arrival of various revolutions – free jazz, funk, hip-hop – and took them on board. But at Berklee our aim is not just to prepare them to join a famous orchestra, but also to help them create new musical forms,' Brown says. 'There are excellent musicians trained in Europe's academies.

The college brings together more than 4,000 students from 80 different countries, under the guidance of 360 teaching staff. The college operates a talent-spotting scheme there that enabled the guitarist Lionel Loueke, among others, to obtain a contract with Blue Note and team up with trumpeter Terence Blanchard. In 2010 Angélique Kidjo, of Benin, received this award 'for her exemplary work for Africa', Brown explains. But the man was very friendly.' Brown went on to play drums in a gospel choir in Kenya and in Gainesville.Įvery year Berklee College presents honorary doctorates to musicians from outside the college.

Being white, with a very noticeable southern accent, I was scared stiff. 'I walked till I reached a bookshop in Harlem called Revolutionary Books. Before he set off for Kenya, he looked for a book to learn Swahili. 'At the time I hadn't made the connection between the segregationist situation in the southern states and my desire to go there. In 1978, having graduated in physics, he went to Kenya to teach maths.

The college's third chief executive, Brown has strong connections with Africa. Brown was classically trained, but the local radio station gave him his first taste of pop music. But his mother, unusually for a woman in the south, had played trombone in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He led 'the marvellous life of southern kids' focusing largely on US football. The college later changed its name to Berklee, a tribute to the founder's son, Lee, who took over from his father in 1979.īrown was born in Gainesville, Georgia, in the days of segregation. George Gershwin and the clarinettist Benny Goodman studied under him. It was originally called the Schillinger House of Music and specialised in a system of harmony and composition based on mathematical models by Joseph Schillinger, a Russian musician who died in 1943. His aim in starting the school was to convince elite Boston that popular music, with its strong African-American influences, was far more sophisticated than they thought. Indeed its founder, Lawrence Berk, was an MIT engineer. The college is close to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Former students include Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Branford Marsalis, Diana Krall, Melissa Etheridge, but also Howard Shore, well known for his film scores, and Brad Whitford, the Aerosmith rhythm guitarist. The college boasts a truly impressive honours board.