Facts About Berklee

	Photo by Bill Gallery

Brief History
Berklee, a nonprofit institution, was founded by pianist/arranger and MIT- trained engineer Lawrence Berk in 1945 as Schillinger House of Music. Berk changed the name to Berklee School of Music in 1954, and the school granted its first bachelor's degrees in 1966. In 1973, Berklee obtained its accreditation, and the school's name was changed to Berklee College of Music.

Enrollment
More than 3,800 students attend Berklee. The college also has the highest percentage of international undergraduates of any college in the United States, over 26 percent (representing more than 70 countries). Women comprise 24.6 percent of the student body. Domestic minority enrollment is African-American, 6.4 percent; Hispanic, 5.5 percent; Asian-American, 4.1 percent. The five countries that supply the largest percentage of foreign students to Berklee are Japan, Korea, Germany, Switzerland, and Brazil.

Majors
Four-year degrees are offered in Performance, Jazz Composition, Music Production & Engineering, Film Scoring, Music Business/Management Composition, Music Synthesis, Contemporary Writing & Production, Music Education, Songwriting, Music Therapy, and Professional Music. Four-year diplomas, which give students the option to forego liberal arts courses to focus solely on contemporary music studies, are also offered in all majors, except Music Business/Management, Music Education, and Music Therapy.

Master's Programs
Graduates of the college's Music Business/Management major can enter a special, accelerated MBA program at Boston's Suffolk University, which waives nearly a semester's worth of requirements, based on their Berklee course work in the major.

Summer Programs
Berklee offers several workshops and educational programs throughout the summer, including the Summer Performance Program, the Music Production Workshop, the Summer String Fling, Boston Guitar Session and the World Percussion Festival. Many of these programs run for a week or less, and all of them, except for Berklee in Los Angeles, are held on Berklee's Boston campus.

Facilities
Located in 13 buildings in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, as well as a dedicated practice/rehearsal building in the city's Allston-Brighton neighborhood, Berklee's facilities include ten professionally equipped recording studios, more than 100 MIDI-equipped workstations and hundreds of synthesizers in the Learning Center and the Music Synthesis Lab, Professional Writing Lab, Professional Education Technology Lab, and Professional Performance Technology Lab. The Film Scoring Department houses six fully equipped film/video scoring and editing labs. The 1,200-seat Berklee Performance Center (BPC), one of the East Coast's finest concert halls, is the site of more than 130 student and faculty concerts each year. The BPC is also the site of numerous performances presented by major concert promoters. In its other four recital halls, Berklee presents over 450 student concerts a year. Berklee students also have access to 40 ensemble rooms and more than 250 private practice rooms.

Ensembles
The 350-plus ensembles that convene each week give Berklee students unprecedented opportunities for performing a wide range of musical styles in a variety of instrumental and vocal groups. Popular ensembles include the Jazz/Rock Ensemble, the Thelonious Monk Ensemble, Vocal Summit, the Commercial Pop/Rock Recording Ensemble, and the Gospel Choir.

Tuition
Please visit the Tuition section of the web site.

Berklee International Network
A cooperative effort to promote contemporary music education worldwide, the Network provides opportunities for faculty and student exchanges as well as cooperative educational programs to be held at the various member schools. To view the complete list of member schools along with more detailed information, visit the Berklee International Network section of the web site.

Prominent Faculty and Staff
Faculty members JoAnne Brackeen, pianist; Richard Evans, arranger/producer; Dave Samuels, vibraphonist; Mili Bermejo-Greenspan, vocalist; Livingston Taylor, singer/songwriter; Bill Pierce, Joe Lovano, and Walter Beasley, saxophonists; Jamey Haddad, percussionist; Kevin Mahogany, vocalist; and Phil Wilson, trombonist/composer.

Visiting Artists
The college hosts dozens of guest clinicians each semester. These have included drummer Max Roach; saxophonist/composer Branford Marsalis; cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pop producer/arranger Nile Rodgers; bassist Christian McBride; singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffet; film and theater composer Alan Menken; singer/songwriter Janis Ian; pop performers Billy Joel and Smokey Robinson; trumpeter Arturo Sandoval; guitarist/composer Pat Metheny; bassist Ray Brown; trumpeter/composer Terrence Blanchard; vocal group Manhattan Transfer; film composer Michael Kamen; and pianist/composer Alan Broadbent.

Prominent Alumni
Alumni include producer/arranger Quincy Jones; Living Colour drummer Will Calhoun; pop singer/guitarist Melissa Etheridge; pop singer/guitarist Bruce Cockburn; jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton; big band composer/pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi; film composer Alan Silvestri; Steely Dan leader Donald Fagen; singer/songwriter Aimee Mann; jazz saxophonist/ composer Branford Marsalis; guitarist/Tonight Show bandleader Kevin Eubanks; and singer/songwriter Paula Cole.

Leadership
Roger H. Brown became Berklee's third president in 2004. Bringing vast experience to the college as an early childhood educator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Brown was inaugurated in December 2004. He has already had a huge impact on the college, and in his inauguration address, he announced a bold new vision for the college's future.

Berklee, in Brief
There are 230 acoustic pianos and more than 1,000 guitar principals at Berklee. The average class size is 11. The holdings of the college's Stan Getz Media Center and Library include more than 11,500 recordings, 20,000 books, 17,000 musical scores, and 6,000 lead sheets.

Finances
Berklee's operating budget for the fiscal year that began June 1, 2001 was approximately $72 million. The college's endowment as of February 2002 was valued at approximately $133 million.