#BerkleeTogether Returns with New Performances
Mae-Ya Ryan Carter
Image courtesy of the artist
The #BerkleeTogether performance series returns in March as Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee students team up from across the globe. During this period of socially distanced music, students, faculty, and alumni continue to collaborate and create, bringing new live performances to a global audience via Berklee's YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook pages every two weeks at 8:00 p.m. ET.
On Wednesday, March 16, student Mae Ya Ryan Carter will perform “Good Job” by Alicia Keys with a vocal choir and string ensemble featuring Berklee musicians from Chile, Serbia, Israel, Australia, and Norway. A self-taught vocalist and musician, Carter produces arrangements of songs from genres spanning jazz, gospel, R&B, pop, blues, classical, and more. She has been featured on network news programs such as WGN’s Morning Show, CBS 2’s Someone You Should Know, WCIU’s You and Me This Morning, and ABC 7’s Heart and Soul. Her music has been featured in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, and other publications.
Carter’s "Good Job" performance is produced and directed by Marlon Solomon, a tenor vocalist from East Orange, New Jersey, majoring in music business/management and music production and engineering. “Working with Mae-Ya was an absolute delight,” says Solomon. “When I started developing the concept for the “Good Job” project, Mae-Ya immediately came to my mind because of her incredibly rich tone. As we approach the one year mark of the pandemic, I want this video to be dedicated to everyone who has helped make the time a little more bearable.”
On March 3, #BerkleeTogether featured Bri Jones covering Mahalia's “I Wish I Missed My Ex." The performance included current students Alonzo Miles Jr. (piano/keyboard and arrangements), Cavon Brown (drums), and Perris Fisher (bass). A Chicago native, Jones is studying voice at Berklee and recently released her first single, “Let Me See You.”
Watch Bri Jones perform "I Wish I Missed My Ex" by Mahalia: