Dream Theater Donates Proceeds to Berklee Scholarship
Berklee student Eren Başbŭg conducts the Berklee orchestra during a spring Dream Theater performance.
Berklee alumni members of Dream Theater John Myung (bass; pictured left) and John Petrucci (guitar; pictured right) perform at the Boston Opera House.
Eren Başbŭg revels in the thrill of sharing the stage with his longtime musical heroes, the members of Dream Theater.
Dream Theater drummer and former Berklee assistant professor of percussion, Mike Mangini behind the kit during the Boston performance.
Eren Başbŭg stands as the crowd applauds at the end of his dream-come-true performance alongside Dream Theater.
This past March, progressive metal legends Dream Theater performed in Boston alongside Berklee students for what became a homecoming. The core members of the band, founded in 1985, are Berklee alumni and have kept close ties with the college over the course of their multiplatinum-selling career. To commemorate the Boston show, the band released Breaking the Fourth Wall (Roadrunner Records)—a live, two-disc DVD that debuted at No. 1 on the Top DVD Music Video and Top Music Video charts, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
“With John [Myung] and I both being alumni and Mike [Mangini] having been a professor at the college for 10 years, we saw the opportunity to perform together with the students of Berklee as a tremendous thrill and honor," John Petrucci, founding member and guitarist, said in a recent interview with Loudwire.
One of those students was Eren Başbŭg, a dual major in electronic production and design and film scoring from Ankara, Turkey who had been writing his own arrangements of Dream Theater songs since he was a teenager. Through Berklee, he was given the chance to conduct his arrangements with a Berklee orchestra and choir alongside the band that inspired him in the first place.
Breaking the Fourth Wall contains two hours of concert material and special features from the Boston Opera House performance. The band is donating a portion of the proceeds to the Dream Theater Scholarship Fund at Berklee—and the impact will be palpably felt. Many incoming students from around the world cite Dream Theater as a prime reason for applying. "The relationship between Berklee and Dream Theater is tremendously important," says Mark Campbell, vice president of enrollment at Berklee. "Their extraordinarily creative sound and virtuosity makes them powerful representatives of a Berklee education."
Order Breaking the Fourth Wall
Watch Dream Theater perform with Berklee student Eren Başbŭg conducting the Berklee orchestra: