Requirements
All students must prepare an instrumental or voice audition to get accepted into the Berklee College of Music.
Unlike other major music schools, students do not go into Berklee with a designated major.
Rather, students take courses throughout their first year, then declare a major their second year at the institution.
Besides the standard application materials, such as exam scores, transcripts, recommendation letters, etc., Berklee also asks students for a 500-word essay in which the students tells Berklee about him or herself.
Students at Berklee must also provide an interview at Berklee.
The Berklee interview addresses four major questions:
· Are you prepared to study at Berklee?
· What are your professional/career goals?
· Who do you want to study with at Berklee (in terms of faculty)?
· What will you bring to Berklee?
Learn more at https://www.berklee.edu/admissions/undergraduate/auditionandinterview.
Notable Alumni
Berklee is perhaps, along with Juilliard and Curtis, the music school that has produced the highest number of world-famous alumni who are working in a number of genres.
Here is a partial list of their incredible alumni.
· World-famous guitarist Steve Vai
· Pop star John Mayer.
· Lead singer of rock band Weezer.
· Jazz pianist and legend Keith Jarrett.
· Various members of Passion Pit, NoFX, Dream Theater, the Wandas, Train, the Cars, Tower of Power, the Black Eyed Peas, Weezer, the Dixie Chicks, Imagine Dragons (as noted earlier).
The list then goes on to thousands and thousands more.
Even though the majority of musicians graduating from any music school do not end up being world-famous, a great number of Berklee’s alumni are successful teachers, session musicians, producers, electronic artists, and faculty at schools throughout the entire world.
Notable Faculty
Berklee’s faculty, especially for jazz and popular music, is truly second-to-none.
One of their prominent jazz faculty musicians is Joe Lovano, post bop saxophonist and Grammy-award winning multi-instrumentalist. Lovano is considered among the pre-eminent tenor saxophonists playing today.
Bebop jazz guitarist Steve Rochinski is another notable name in the jazz department at Berklee. Rochinski is a world-renowned guitarist, having performed with the likes of Tal Farlow, Chuck Redd, Gary Foster, and others.
Other faculty musicians include heavy metal specialist Joe Stump, Isaiah Jackson, the first African-American conductor to be appointed a music directorship position in Boston (with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston), and Dan Bowden, prominent educator and guitarist.