Students Entering Global Jazz Graduate Program to Receive Full-Tuition Grants
Danilo Pérez, artistic director for the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, performs with students from the program. Pérez and other renowned jazz musicians at the institute direct their students to achieve the highest levels of creativity, musicianship, and service in a variety of settings on- and off-campus.
Beginning with the fall 2016 class, all 20 students accepted into Berklee College of Music’s master of music in contemporary performance (global jazz concentration) program will be awarded full-tuition grants valued at $47,500. Students accepted into this program from each subsequent entering class will also attend entirely tuition-free. Applications for the intensive, three-semester program are due by February 1, 2016. For more information, visit berklee.edu/graduate. These grants are made possible thanks to a generous gift from Jeff Shames, chair of Berklee’s board of trustees.
Berklee launched the master of music in contemporary performance (global jazz concentration) program at the beginning of the fall 2015 semester as a natural outgrowth of its highly successful undergraduate Berklee Global Jazz Institute program, which falls under the artistic direction of Grammy Award-winning Panamanian piano virtuoso Danilo Pérez.
“The global jazz master’s program is designed for dedicated young musicians who aspire to work with, and someday to be, among the best in the world,” says Berklee President Roger H. Brown. “Danilo and the program faculty are looking for students who are as passionate about developing as bold, effective global citizens as they are about becoming creative and accomplished musicians. These full-tuition grants will guarantee access for the most thoughtful, accomplished, and deserving students on the planet to an elite faculty and a comprehensive program that has been designed expressly for them.”
Advanced instrumentalists and vocalists selected for the program will be integrated within the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, under Perez’s direction, and students will have the opportunity to be mentored by some of the world’s foremost jazz musicians, including Terri Lyne Carrington, Joe Lovano, George Garzone, and John Patitucci. They will also travel and perform together, creating music and serving local communities. The program’s previous destinations include Africa, New York, and famed jazz festivals in Newport, Monterey, and Panama, to name a few.
Service learning and developing a sense of global citizenship are central to the program. Students will learn the skills needed to become role models for a new generation of musicians and to inspire leadership in others. They will impact the greater Berklee community by working with children and teaching music in the Boston area through Berklee City Music programs and in other locations during their travels.
Further, through the study of music business and production, students in the program will create strategies to take their own projects to the next level. The program also emphasizes the restoration of nature and creates opportunities for its students to connect creative musical expression to the natural world.