Berklee Today: All the Right Moves
Lee Eliot Berk
Photo by Anthony Scarpetta
The writing of a new chapter in the history of Berklee College of Music is about to commence. In June 2004, Lee Eliot Berk, the college's second president will retire. Since opening its doors in 1945, Berklee has fulfilled the ambition of its founder and first president, Lawrence Berk (Lee's father), to offer an alternative to a conservatory-style music education. Time has vindicated Lawrence Berk's notion of basing a music-education curriculum on jazz and other forms of contemporary music and providing practical career training for musicians. Over the past six decades, ideas pioneered by Lawrence Berk and carried forward by Lee Eliot Berk have become a paradigm much admired and even adopted by music-education institutions throughout the world.