An Italian Feast
Legendary musicians, hundreds of students, and the 30th anniversary of Italy's greatest jazz festival made for a summer to remember.
By Emily Singer and Rob Hochschild
August 26, 2003
If you're an aspiring jazz musician, there are few places better to be in mid-July than Perugia, Italy. You can listen to some of the finest musicians perform every night at the ten-day Umbria Jazz Festival and spend your days in the classroom working on your own sound at the Berklee Summer School at Umbria Jazz Clinics. And this year, the experience got even better, as several of the performers—including saxophonist Sonny Rollins, vocalist Bobby McFerrin, and drummer Elvin Jones—gave master classes or participated in other events on the Berklee schedule.
Rollins, McFerrin, and bassist and composer Giovanni Tommaso received honorary doctor of music degrees from the college while students, faculty, and festival goers, among others, watched on July 19. Each honoree was cheered enthusiastically after receiving his degree and addressing the audience in the centuries-old Sala Dei Notari.
Tommaso, a giant of jazz in Europe, is also codirector of the Berklee Summer School at Umbria Jazz Clinics, which he has run throughout its 18-year existence with Berklee's Vice President for International Programs Larry Monroe. He has recorded several albums as a leader and played with a long list of jazz greats, including Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, and Chet Baker.
McFerrin provided some of the biggest musical highlights for the students. He held classes on two separate days and performed in a highly improvisatory set with students, teachers, and other musicians for a festival audience at the historic Morlacchi Theater.
A record 283 students from Italy and 20 other countries traveled to Perugia to study with Berklee faculty members. The clinics' curriculum, modeled after Berklee in Boston, included instrumental labs, ensembles, and classes on jazz history, harmony, and improvisation. With the help of translator assistants and a common passion for jazz, students and educators easily overcame the limitations of speaking different languages. Other clinic highlights included master classes given by Jones and an impromptu classroom visit from vocalist Tony Bennett H'74.
At the end of the 12-day workshop, student ensembles performed— some of them for Umbria Jazz audiences—and Berklee awarded $60,000 in scholarships to ten talented students.
Click here to view a photo gallery of Berklee in Umbria 2003.
Emily Singer, who is a publicist in Berklee's Office of Public Information, made her second Berklee trip to Italy, in part, to report this story.
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