Faculty and Staff

Rhoda Bernard, Managing Director

 

Rhoda Bernard holds a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in government from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Music with academic honors in jazz voice from New England Conservatory. She earned both her Master of Education and Doctor of Education degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Bernard regularly presents keynote presentations and research at conferences throughout the United States and abroad, and she provides professional development workshops for educators in local, national, and international forums. Her work has been published in several book chapters and in numerous journals, including Music Educators Journal; Music Education Research; Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education; Mountain Lake Reader; and Arts and Learning Research Journal. Bernard has been honored with the Berklee Urban Service Award (2017), the Boston Conservatory Community Service Award (2011), the Boston Conservatory Faculty/Staff Spirit Award (2007), and the Outstanding Dissertation Award, Honorable Mention (Second Place) from the Arts and Learning Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. An active arts education advocate, she is the chair of the Arts Education Advisory Council of Americans for the Arts, and she serves on their speakers bureau. A vocalist and pianist who specializes in jazz music and Jewish music in Yiddish and Hebrew, she performs regularly with a number of klezmer bands and has recorded two CDs with the band Klezamir. Learn about Rhoda Bernard's speaking engagements.

Krista Jadro, Consultant

 

Krista Jadro graduated from the University of Delaware with a Bachelor of Music in music education and a Master of Music in music education in early childhood and general music. During her graduate studies, she was the early childhood music coordinator for the University of Delaware’s Community Music School. Upon graduation, she taught music to students with autism for six years at the Developmental Learning Centers in New Jersey. She is currently the director of early childhood education for Brookline Music School and a consultant and trainer for our Music Class for Young Children. 

Victoria LaRiccia, Faculty, Consultant 

 

Raised in a musical household, Victoria LaRiccia taught herself guitar during her middle-school, high-school, and college years. After college, she founded two local bands, performing on bass, keyboard, and vocals, and discovered a passion for the stage and performance. During this time, LaRiccia began teaching students with autism and incorporated her love of music into her instruction. In 2008, LaRiccia became a consultant to Boston Conservatory’s programs for students on the autism spectrum, and she has been consulting since. LaRiccia has been a special-education teacher in the public schools of Brookline for middle-school students with various moderate disabilities, including communication and emotional disabilities, Down syndrome, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorders for several years. She earned a B.A. in psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Master of Education in special education/moderate disabilities from Cambridge College. LaRiccia has presented on the topics of music instruction and autism at numerous professional development workshops and conferences for educators and administration throughout Massachusetts. In 2016, she began teaching courses in Boston Conservatory at Berklee's Music Education with a Concentration in Music and Autism graduate programs. 

Katie Marshall, Consultant

 

For 12 years, Katie Marshall has been working with children diagnosed with autism. While at Westfield State University, she studied vocal performance as well as psychology. After graduating, she began working in the field of applied behavior analysis as a home therapist. In 2009, she started working at a specialized school called Nashoba Learning Group, where she now works as a full-time clinical manager. Marshall graduated from Endicott College with a master's degree in education, specializing in special education and behavior analysis, in 2015. 

Daniel Martinez del Campo, Operations Assistant

 

Daniel Martinez del Campo is a Berklee alumnus, holding a degree in guitar performance with a minor in psychology. During his time as a Berklee student, he worked for several years in the Office of Academic Affairs as a project supervisor, providing direct support to the offices of Institutional Assessment and Graduate Studies. Upon graduation, he worked briefly as an assistant in the Office of Institutional Assessment, aiding in data analysis and coding. An electric guitarist specializing in metal and rock, he has performed with a variety of notable acts, including the Al Joseph Group, Black Trip, Fright Pig, the Offering, and, most recently, famed tech-death pioneers Atheist. In addition to pursuing a career as a performing and recording artist, he has worked as an independent music transcriber as well as for the publishing company Sheet Happens Music, releasing various tab and transcription books for metal, prog, and rock bands including Revocation, Volbeat, Christian Muenzner, and Inferi. Currently, he transcribes for TrueFire, one of the world's largest online guitar lesson libraries. He has also worked on projects for a variety of world-class jazz and blues artists such as Jeff McErlain, Sheryl Bailey, Stu Hamm, and Frank Vignola.

Assistants

  • Oriana Inferrera, Assistant
  • Marlene Markard, Assistant
  • Rachel Weishoff, Graduate Assistant
  • Julianne Fornier, Graduate Assistant
  • Rachel Lim, Graduate Assistant
  • Jenita Arini, Graduate Assistant
  • Simei Niu, Graduate Assistant
  • Eliza Shaughnessy, Fellow (Fall 2021)

Instructors

  • Nadia Castagna
  • Miles Wilcox
  • Kayla McLaughlin
  • Rachel Jayson
  • Elias Badra
  • Marlene Markard
  • Marisa Giangregorio
  • Zoe Gelinas
  • Benjamin Tan
  • Maria Doreste Velazquez
  • Sofija Zlatanova
  • Arleen Sherman
  • Rachel Lim
  • Sierra Lancaster
  • Xue Liu
  • Tomas Marquez
  • Hadley Lloyd
  • Erin Eberhardt
  • Rachel Weishoff
  • Francis Hickey
  • Christopher Nifong
  • Gretchen Hary
  • Valerie Snow