Faculty
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Brian Jantz, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Music Therapy- B.M., Berklee College of Music, Music Therapy
- Guitarist
- Former staff music therapist at the Community Music Center of Boston and Bournewood Psychiatric Hospital Rehabilitation Department
- Former director of music therapy for All-Newton Music School and Brookline Music School
- Former private consultant at Boston College Campus School for over five years
- Directed and managed large residential group home in Watertown, MA
- Featured in Fox News, the Boston Herald, and Boston Parents Paper for his unique clinical use of music
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"The Music Synthesis major, particularly at the elective course level, is diverse by design. We are teaching our students to be highly creative with a wide variety of electronic tools. That creativity could take the form of composition, production, performance, sound design for film/television/video games, software design, or a unique combination of several forms. For some musicians, their identity is with their instrument. For us, it is an electronic sound palette put to innovative and musical use."
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Benjamin Sher, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"The guitar is a bit of a matrix; because it has so many strings, the same note appears in different regions, so it's hard to figure out where to play notes. To help students find their way around the guitar, I use a streamlined version of Bill Leavitt's 'old-school' approach that I learned from. Brazilian music is also helpful in teaching students to read, because the subdivision is in two instead of in four, so I feel students are able to see wider rhythmic phrases and see the bigger picture of what's going on from measure to measure."
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Rene Pfister, Instructor
DEPARTMENT : Voice Department"I'm big on repertoire. The song is the medium through which singers express their talent. I encourage my students to listen to vocalists of all genres, analyze what is happening vocally, both technically and stylistically. It's critical that a singer learn to choose the right songs. All of my students create a book of songs in the proper keys so that they are prepared when someone says, 'Can you do this gig?' Yes, and I'm ready to sing 50 songs to prove it."
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"I teach computer applications in the music industry, web design and management, web development for e-business, and a few others. It's about developing ways of getting your information out there. Having those technology skills will allow you to build your business, whether it's yourself, if you're a solo artist, or you're working for a company that's promoting artists. It also teaches attention to detail and aesthetics. It's a different generation. You need to have those skills now."
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Simon Shaheen, Professor
DEPARTMENT : String Department
"What I'm bringing to Berklee is my experience as a Western classical musician, Arab traditional musician, and this eclectic fusion of music from around the world, which I grew up with. I speak five languages because I grew up with it; it's not like I learned in later stages. So it's part of me. Berklee is the place where I can bring all this experience, because the idea is not to create compartments of music, but to open the walls and let all these experiences seep into each other."
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"There is a thread in this music. What they have in common is these little rhythmic cells, things that are actually from Africa and other ancient places. This is in Brazilian music, in Afro-Cuban music. It's in calypso, it's in New Orleans music. So there is a little musical DNA that's in all of them. It's like cooking. If you understand what curry does, what salt does, what pepper does, what garlic does, what olive oil does, you can play with food. I tell that to my students in every class: I don't want them to play rhythms; I want them to play withthe rhythms."
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"I'm teaching MP-320, Producing for Records. Really, it's a full semester with one goal. The first half, they do demos of a couple of songs, and the second half, they do a full recording. That means a little detours with different songs, maybe, or trying out different things, but in the second half, they get their studio time, and they get really focused. They pick their own artist. It's got to be a Berklee song and a Berklee artist. It's all connected with the engineering class and the mix class. It's a project with three different courses involved, so they're all integrated and coordinated."
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Helen Sung, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Piano Department
"Here at Berklee I teach private lessons to piano majors. I'm very impressed with my students. They're all very gifted and from all over the world: Korea, Cuba, Sri Lanka, Canada, the U.S., etc. They each come from very different backgrounds and training, yet here they all are at Berklee wanting to learn more about jazz. This really speaks to the global impact of this great American art form."
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Alison Plante, Assistant Chair
DEPARTMENT : Film Scoring"Knowing how to collaborate is so important. Music for media—whether it's games, interactive media, film, or television—doesn't stand alone; it works with the other elements and that means that you're working with other people. We promote collaboration in a lot of classes in our department and in extracurricular activities, and we're continuing to broaden the possibilities for collaboration in the curriculum."
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