Dennis Leclaire

"I've wanted to be a college teacher of music ever since eighth grade; in fact, I still remember it was my career project that year. But I also wanted to compose, and I've also played in and conducted orchestras for many years."

"In my Western Music classes, I love to make students aware of music that they've never heard before; they're always surprised when they find out that there's very little new under the sun. When they listen to some of the music from the Middle Ages, they often say, 'Wow—these are the kinds of things we're doing now.'"

"It's very exciting for me to make the music real for students—to fit it into the context of history and literature and art. And this is some of the greatest music there is. The most important thing I want for my students is for them to really love this music, because if they love it, then they'll get something out of it."

"In the end, all we can really do is open some doors. I tell my students, if you come out of electrical school, you can either wire a house or you can't. But when you come out of Berklee, and you've gotten As in all your counterpoint classes, does that mean you're a great contrapuntalist? If you get As in orchestration, can you orchestrate like Strauss or Mahler? Probably not. But we do give you an approach: we show you what you need to know and give you the tools to continue the learning process. Our students, just like all of us, will be learning for the rest of their lives."

"As a student advisor, I see that the number of our students going on to graduate school has really increased over the past few years. So an important function of my work at Berklee is to be a repository of information about how to apply, and all the different considerations to think about. And every fall, in the weekly Directed Study class, I lecture on how to get into graduate school."