Claudio Ragazzi

"I’ve been scoring films, television series, independent films, and documentaries for a number of years now. When I came to Berklee as a student in the '80s, my teachers were people who had one foot on the street and another foot in the school; that's what I love about Berklee. So now I could be teaching today and recording a project or going to a film festival tomorrow."

"I believe in the complete musician. I think in order to make it in the real world today you have to have a specialty like film scoring, orchestration, or production, but you also need to know how to play your instrument, arrange, produce, and read. Twenty-something years ago I was graduating from Berklee, then I went to play music, then record, and then I ended up going into film scoring for almost twenty years, and now I come full circle back to Berklee as a teacher. So I think if you really want to make it as a professional musician, you try to be, as much as you can, a complete musician, someone who can perform, write, orchestrate, arrange, produce, score films, work in theater, or write for ballet—just know other forms."

"I came to Berklee to write big band music, and some of my friends at the time were studying film scoring. I never really got a big band together after I graduated, and some of my friends never got to write a score for a movie. So you really never know where you’re going to end up in this business. You’re always growing. That’s the beauty."

"Recently I was producing an album for a singer, and there were three film scoring students in the string section. One of them, I didn’t even know she played violin. That’s why Berklee’s a unique place, because even if you aren’t looking to hire Berklee students or graduates, you’re going to end up working with them. We’re so embedded in the professional world."