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Faculty

The members of our faculty are more than teachers. They’ll be your mentors, your collaborators, and your instant list of more than 500 industry contacts. They are experienced and talented professionals in their field—and bring a thorough knowledge of music to the classroom that comes from a rich professional background in the music industry. They also bring an energy that will inspire you to push your talents and thinking beyond what you thought were the limits. You’ll find yourself transferring their influences to your ensemble rehearsals, performances, recording sessions, and gigs. In addition, the student-teacher ratio averages 8 to 1. Which means you’ll never feel like a number.

Find a faculty member

Gates Thomas, Associate Professor

DEPARTMENT : Contemporary Writing and Production Department

  • B.A., Northwestern University
  • B.M., Berklee College of Music
  • Vocalist, keyboardist, guitarist, violinist, and conductor
  • Performances with Choral Chameleon, Rosemary Clooney, Paula Cole, Bill Conti, Christian Fabian, Matt Garrison, Abe Laboriel Jr., and the New American Orchestra of Chicago, and Sadao Watanabe
  • Recordings with Gary Burton, Jim Hall, m-pact, and John Scofield

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Nicholas Urie, Assistant Professor

DEPARTMENT : Contemporary Writing and Production Department

"I make a living doing the things that I teach in class. I write arrangements of jazz and pop music for recordings, concerts, and television broadcasts. I speak passionately about the subject because it is not a theoretical exercise for me; I am living it. I try to make my classroom reflect my reality in the professional world. I assess my students given where they are in their education, but I also try to assess them as someone outside the Berklee community would. They’ll get two grades from me on their projects: the student grade and the grade they would get outside of Berklee. I like to think of myself as their client. From week to week I am commissioning them, and I expect them to wow me every time."

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David Zoffer, Assistant Professor

DEPARTMENT : Contemporary Writing and Production Department

"I get really fired up when I point out all the little magical things that different players in a band do, what makes a particular player's or arranger's contribution unique, and how that expresses something for the whole piece. It's important to really commit to learning everything that's going on inside that music and its context. You throw yourself into it, and when you come out, that's really when you learn. You can't just dip your toe in the water, you have to drink from the fire hose. Then you can decide how much you want to take away from the experience."

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