Composition
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Julius Williams, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"Here at Berklee, we have one of the strongest Composition departments in the country. We've got over 37 composers on the faculty, and really 118 composers in the whole Writing Division. No other place has this many people who write music in one area. The attitude around here is laid back, but serious at the same time, because most of the composers are very active, writing everything from performance works to film scores. And that's what makes Berklee different. It's a very exciting, creative atmosphere."
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"When I teach, I connect concepts to real, live musical moments. I draw listening examples from a range of styles and encourage students to find their own examples and bring them into class. I incorporate my professional experience into the class through my own composition and performance on the violin and piano. By discovering your personal connection to a concept, you turn theory into practice—you make an abstraction come alive through your own musical experience."
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Kari Juusela, Dean
DEPARTMENT : Professional Writing Division"Professional Writing has to do with all the music that is composed. We try to encompass all the styles that are happening today, all the way from contemporary classical to hip-hop. Although we work with older music, our focus is on what's happening now—which keeps us on our toes. There's been a real blending of musical styles, and Berklee is a perfect place to do that because we have so many faculty experts in all these areas."
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James Smith, Assistant Chair
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"The courses in our department give students the nuts and bolts that will give them a real leg up. When they walk out of Berklee, they can also do arranging, orchestration, transcription—a world of things to keep them in the business while they're still waiting for that one song that becomes the big one. The more tools they've got, the more ways they have of staying in the profession."
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"Nobody would have written so much music if they had waited for divine inspiration. It is technique. It is logic. Making music is the same as making spacecraft or a pair of shoes or a washing machine. The same human brain that creates music and art also makes all these diverse things. So in music it's not just about having an inspiration; it's coherence in how to put things together."
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Carmen Moral, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"A good conductor must be able to transmit with body language. In order to transmit, you need technique. You have to convey your intentions not with long speeches, but mainly with your gestures. I conducted an orchestra in China, and I do not speak Chinese. But I can communicate what I want, musically."
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Louis Stewart, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"The technique Attilio Poto taught me is what I teach my students. It is essentially Italian opera conducting, and it is not hard; a person with some musical background can learn enough in six weeks to conduct an ensemble. It's just a matter of learning to use gravity so that the beat is predictable and doesn't look choppy. I tell my students, 'If you come to class, retain what I teach you, and practice 10 to 15 minutes a day, seven days a week, you will learn the technique.'"
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Andrew List, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"I believe that the inner ear is just as much an instrument as the external ear. In a way, it's the stronger instrument, since the inner ear is connected with your intuition. And composing music is about being open to your own intuition. It's when you don't think 'complicated' that the purest ideas come through. When a student gets to that point, and comes up with something fresh and original, it's very exciting to see. It's very creative and very beautiful, and that makes it all worthwhile to me."
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Thomas J. McGah, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"It's very easy sometimes in academic settings to begin to live in an unreal world, especially if you're talking to other composers all the time. It's the rockers, the jazzers, and the business majors who are going to keep us healthy and keep us in the real world. I firmly believe this: a composer is one who should have wide horizons. The great masters of the past were very involved in the popular music of the day. Beethoven didn't look down his nose at writing a good waltz. Even Schoenberg composed and arranged cabaret music in Berlin."
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Dennis Leclaire, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"In my Western Music classes, I love to make students aware of music that they've never heard before; they're always surprised when they find out that there's very little new under the sun. When they listen to some of the music from the Middle Ages, they often say, 'Wow—these are the kinds of things we're doing now.'"
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