Ian Pratt Justin Knight

It takes a special kind of discipline to play free jazz. That's what trumpeter Ian Pratt learned from Assistant Professor Jeff Galindo's ensemble on the music of Ornette Coleman.

"You have to concentrate on being open," says Pratt, age 20.

That discipline was on display in the David Friend Recital Hall at the spring 1999 semester's end as Galindo's ensemble performed solos without rules— no guideposts but the key signature—on Coleman tunes such as "Broadway Blues." Pratt held his own with the rest of the septet, contributing moody solos that shifted between sharp upper-register bursts and low-end grumblings, and jumping in whenever another soloist started playing the kind of repeated figure that serves as a call to collective improvisation.

Every semester since he arrived at Berklee College of Music in the fall of 1997, the Professional Music major has loaded up his schedule with ensembles, absorbing musical styles like a sponge. And that doesn't count the times Pratt, like other Berklee horn principals, has gotten pressed into service for other groups in need of a strong lead voice.

"A lot of these brass players won't say no," says Thomas Plsek, chair of the Brass Department. "They get officially enrolled in a couple of ensembles, but they play in a lot more." That's why it's important to have awards and scholarships to reward the efforts of hardworking horn players, he says.

"This is for folks who go above and beyond, and contribute to the department and the college," says Plsek.

Those folks include Ian Pratt, winner of the Fred Berman Memorial Scholarship for 1999. Pratt says he appreciates the recognition.

"It was quite nice, encouraging really," says Pratt, who received the scholarship at the end of his second semester. "I kind of felt I was making some headway at Berklee."

That he was. Pratt came to Boston from York ("That's Old York," he says with a grin) in the north of England. He had taken up the trumpet in school when he was nine years old. "Trumpets and violins, that's all they had," says Pratt. "I thought, I'll have a go." When he was 14, Pratt auditioned for a music school in Manchester, hoping to enroll in a year or two. But he was accepted right away. "I jumped at the chance," he says.

Though most of his training was in classical music and technique, Pratt also played in a big band and had a band of his own on the side. Then he attended a week-long Berklee On the Road clinic in Scotland and won a scholarship to the college. Once he graduated, he says, "I came right here."

And he dove right in. "I came with a big thing about playing," he says. That "big thing" put him in ensembles exploring music that ranged from Ornette to Miles to James Brown. The rhythm-and-blues horn lines are "even more of a challenge than doing the jazz," says Pratt. "It's just a few notes, but they've got to be bang on. Every note's important."

But none more important than those on the tape he submitted in competition for the Fred Berman Scholarship, one of two major scholarships earmarked for brass players. The award is given in memory of the founding Brass Department chair at Berklee. A trumpeter formerly with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, Fred Berman joined the faculty of what was then called Schillinger House at its inception and had as students Quincy Jones '51, Professor Emeritus Herb Pomeroy, and Berklee President Lee Eliot Berk.

Berman passed away in 1954, but his family renewed its ties to the college at the time of Berklee's 50th anniversary in 1995. "I knew Lee when we were both little kids," says Rhoda Sapers, Fred Berman's daughter. The anniversary celebrations, she says, rekindled the relationship with her father's former school. Shortly thereafter, Sapers and her husband Bill established an endowed scholarship at Berklee to provide tuition assistance to an outstanding brass player, in memory of her father.

"I was coming up to a big birthday, and my husband suggested we endow a scholarship as a way to celebrate it, which thrilled me," says Rhoda Sapers, who is now a member of Berklee's Board of Visitors.

"I will always remember Fred Berman's personal warmth toward me," says President Berk. "In fact, my father (Berklee founder Lawrence Berk) always credited Fred with the inspiration for the naming of the school, which is a reversal of my name. This was a very special legacy naming gift by Bill and Rhoda Sapers, which will always be cherished as commemorating one of the most important figures in Berklee history."

For this year's award, "it was pretty clear [Pratt] was our man," says Plsek. "He's very talented and a delightful person, a real gentleman. He always takes care of business. He's terrific."

"He's my favorite trumpet student," says Tiger Okoshi, who works him hard in private lessons. "After 10 or 15 minutes, he's already sweating," Okoshi says with a laugh.

Rewards like the Berman scholarship make the sweating worth it, says Pratt. "That was a really good boost," he says. "It's amazing that I can come to this country, and they'll give me this money, give it to someone who's not an American. It's great how they encourage foreigners here."