After leading Berklee through its first three decades, Lawrence Berk was succeeded by his son, Lee Eliot Berk. Now, having served almost as long himself, President Berk is retiring.

By Jason Roeder
Berklee.edu Correspondent
May 21, 2004

View the Lee Eliot Berk Photo Gallery (12 photos)
Photo by Bill Gallery

He's talking about the fact that, on average, college presidents serve between six and seven years and that Berklee, with just two leaders in its almost 60-year history, has managed to avoid the high turnover. Only Berk and his father, Lawrence Berk, who founded Berklee in 1945 as Schillinger House, have ever held the presidential post. But it wasn't just a surname that continued when, on the recommendation of the college's board of trustees, leadership was passed from father to son in 1979. It was a vision.

"I felt that I had a mandate to continue the tradition my father had pioneered," Berk says, "keeping the focus on the specific mission that had been making the college a success at that time and enhancing it as best I could."

And now, having served as president for 25 years (and an additional 13 as a faculty member and administrator), President Berk will be stepping down. With his wife, Mrs. Susan G. Berk, at his side and with the support of his mother, Alma Berk, who was once Lawrence Berk's music copyist and who went on to promote Berklee as the college's first director of public information, President Berk has built upon the ambitions of his father and turned a music school into a music city.

Among his many accomplishments as president are the enhancement of Berklee's curriculum, the expansion of its infrastructure, and the elevation of the prestige of contemporary music forms in the United States and abroad. But perhaps his legacy can best be represented by four key contributions to the college in the areas of music technology, music business, music therapy, and outreach.

Music Technology

Though the use of computers and other sophisticated equipment to record, distribute, and even create music has radically increased in recent years, Berklee has never been a stranger to technology. Under Lawrence Berk, the college's first recording facilities were installed in the late '60s, and the first elective in audio recording began in 1972. Berklee acquired its first synthesizer in the summer of 1970, and the first electronic music course was launched later that year. By the time President Berk took the reigns in 1979, the college had already long since recognized the increasing importance of technology and had committed to making it an important part of the Berklee experience.

"Technology is an integral part of music and of the way musicians work and live," Berk says. "There's so much wrapped up in technology one way or another...musicians sitting in microstudios by themselves can do what people years ago achieved with consoles larger than Volkswagens."

As of 2003, the Berklee curriculum has two full-fledged technology-based majors, Music Synthesis and Music Production and Engineering, though the other majors incorporate technology into their programs as well. Songwriting majors, for example, learn how to produce their own demos. Film Scoring majors use sophisticated digital equipment to synchronize their scores with scenes, while Music Education majors learn software to enhance their students' lessons. For President Berk, it's never been enough for students to simply have access to the tools; they have to be able to apply them in their professional and creative lives.

"We would come up with ideas," says Vice President for Information Technology David Mash, "and Lee would say, 'That's great, but now let's make sure students can really use this.'"

Of course, the state-of-the-art tools themselves are impressive, including 12 professional-quality production facilities, six music synthesis labs and a synthesis recital hall, and customized technology labs for each of the college's nontechnology-based divisions (Professional Performance, Professional Writing, and Professional Education). The college's Learning Center, with 40 computer-based MIDI workstations, is the largest networked music technology facility of its kind in the world.

"I don't think there's another music college on the planet that can compete with the technological infrastructure," says Mash, "the labs, the studios, the network, all of the elements that support our curriculum."

Not bad, considering the fact President Berk's professional background is law, not electronics. But Mash says that it wasn't technological know-how for which Berk was relied upon. It was vision.

"He had a sense, an intuition of the importance technology was going to play," says Mash, "without necessarily knowing how it was going to be important, which he left to people like me to sort out. But he gave us the right direction and leadership to make it real."

President Berk's accomplishments haven't gone unnoticed in the music industry, either. Michael Kovins, president of keyboard manufacturer Korg USA as well as of the International Association of Electronic Keyboard Manufacturers, says that Berklee hasn't merely kept up with advances in technology; it has become a model for other schools striving to offer their students a cutting-edge education.

"President Berk has been at the forefront of music technology in the schools," Kovins says. "In expanding Berklee's offerings as a contemporary music college, it is now a premier leader in music technology education in the U.S. and globally. Lee Berk realized that in order to achieve his goals, Berklee needed to create new state-of-the-art facilities using keyboard labs for practice and production. No other institution in the country has such a large facility dedicated to contemporary music making, which has set the benchmark for others to emulate."

Music Business/Management

When we think of the music industry, many of us tend to focus on the audio aspect of it. We think of the performers, the composers, the producers—the people who create and shape the sounds. But music is also a product that must be cultivated, promoted, and distributed by highly skilled businesspeople. Agents, managers, and A&R representatives, however, traditionally haven't received their education at music colleges. They've taken general business courses and tried applying what they've learned to the music world. Though it seemed natural for the leading school of contemporary music to take on business as an added dimension to the college curriculum, there was some resistance at first. Some felt that music business was best left for MBAs and that music making was exclusively what the college should be about. But President Berk knew that his vision for a complete music city had to include every aspect of the music industry.

"The fact is that every time we've been inclusive, we become more real," says Berk, "more real in the sense of what we call an educational music city that sort of replicates what's going on outside our walls. All of the steps we've taken to be more participatory have always been more positive for the students and more reflective of what's happening beyond Berklee; they've all made for a better college."

The Music Business/Management program launched in 1992 with 46 students and a modest selection of courses. Since then, enrollment has grown to 375, and there are more than 30 courses available. Music Business/Management majors intern with—and go on to work for—major record labels, radio stations, management organizations, and many more businesses in the music industry. In 2002, Heavy Rotation Records, the college's student-run record label, collaborated with major label Epic Records to put out Shekinah, a compilation of Berklee women artists that was the first joint release of its kind. It's no wonder so many music business professionals have something to say about Berklee.

"My job gave me the advantage of traveling throughout the world and talking with dealers, manufacturers, distributors, and educators about various topics," says Larry Linkin, former president/CEO of the International Music Products Association (NAMM). "Whenever music education was mentioned, Lee Berk and Berklee were soon being discussed. Lee's influence and ideas are indeed felt around the globe. His vision, hard work, and charisma are unmatched in our society today."

Though not a musician himself, President Berk has considerable expertise in the practical matters affecting careers in music. He taught a music law course as a faculty member that eventually incorporated aspects of music business, and his 1971 book Legal Protection for the Creative Musician won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Best Book in Music. Though President Berk never ran a music business department, his work made one possible.

"Lee was one of the pioneers, you could say, of music business educators," says Music Business/Management Department Chair Don Gorder. "He always understood the need for it and for how it had to be done at Berklee."

And as for the reluctance to teach business at a music school? Gorder says that he hasn't felt it and that he suspects that has to do with the right leadership.

"Since we've had this program up and running, I've never felt any kind of turbulence within the college about it," Gorder says. "If there was resistance, apparently Lee won over the environment and said, 'This is what we need to do.'"

Music Therapy

Berklee's newest major came into being in the mid-90s, and it may be the college's most distinct offering. The other courses of study directly or indirectly contribute to the enjoyment of music as entertainment, as art; Music Therapy majors study music as a tool for healing people with physical, emotional, or intellectual challenges. Like music business, there was initially some apprehension about introducing music therapy, some concerns about its place in a "pure" music education environment. But as he had done with music business, President Berk realized that a genuine music city was built on more than studios and stages.

"We always have to look at what are important ways that people can have a life in music," says Berk. "What are the viable professional career opportunities for young people who want to learn music and make a good social contribution to society with it? Look at what the music therapy graduate can do by helping so many people with such a wide range of disabilities in so many different settings. It's just incontestable, undeniable, the amount of good that could be done by skilled music professionals."

And he realized that Berklee wouldn't just be another college with another music therapy program. It would have a number of advantages over programs offered at liberal arts schools.

"[He] had the idea that Berklee could bring some unique new contributions to the field," says Executive Vice President Gary Burton. "Specifically, Berklee's expertise in improvisation, contemporary styles of music, and music technology has provided our program very exciting new enhancements. We are very proud of the success of our recent graduates and the role our program now plays in the health community of Greater Boston."

That community is another reason Berklee's music therapy program has been so successful. The Boston area is home to some of the world's finest healthcare facilities, including Children's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and McLean Hospital. Music Therapy majors participate in clinical practica in settings such as these and many others. The students get supervised hands-on training; the facilities, more than 50 in the Boston area, get motivated, talented musician helpers to work with their clients.

"The student placement has expanded rapidly," says McLean Hospital's Fred Silverstone, clinical director of the geriatric partial hospital program and supervisor of McLean's expressive therapy students. "We started with geriatrics and moved also to a psychiatric disorders program, then moved to involving Alzheimer's. It's growing, and there's a lot of interest...we're looking ahead with joy to an internship program at some point."

The growth of music therapy at Berklee is a validation of another aspect of President Berk's vision for the college: an institution of higher education should not just serve itself, but should also be actively engaged in the world at large.

"He has created what we certainly believe is the best music college anywhere," says Music Therapy Chair Suzanne Hanser, "but that was not enough...his interest in music therapy shows him to be a servant of the community at large and to humanity."

Outreach

Outreach takes many forms and can perhaps be broadly characterized as an institution's efforts to help or connect with individuals or communities beyond its walls. There's a long-standing tradition of outreach at Berklee that stretches to the college's roots. One of Lawrence Berk's early projects, for example, was a series of recordings and score sheets called Jazz in the Classroom, which was distributed far and wide to musicians and teachers. At the time, there was no established jazz pedagogy and few transcriptions to act as learning aids, so there was always demand for these new educational tools.

"Whenever my parents traveled," says President Berk, "they would take with them cases of LPs, score sets, all kinds of educational materials, and they would be sharing that wherever they went."

Since those days, technology has grown and the world has shrunk, but Lawrence Berk's sense of service lives on in the ways Berklee continues to reach out off campus. The college has one of the largest proportions of international students to be found at any school, music or otherwise, and leads the Berklee International Network, a 13-member collaborative organization of contemporary-music schools. And with Berklee's new web branch, Berkleemusic.com, the college will be able to offer courses, vocational information, and networking opportunities to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection.

"This is all part of a course of development," says Berk. "You have to look at it in its broad-based context."

Outreach, of course, is often associated with public service, and in this respect Berklee has always done its part. In 1971, under Lawrence Berk, the college initiated the Berklee Community Service Program, which sent student ensembles to perform at hospitals, correctional facilities, and public schools, and which offered free music lessons to local youths on Saturdays. Outreach activities have only expanded under Lee Eliot Berk. Assistant Vice President for Community and Governmental Affairs Curtis Warner says that in some schools community service gets, at best, peripheral attention; at Berklee, it's a presidential priority.

"Initiatives that have backing from the top are going to move more successfully than those that don't," Warner says. "In that sense, Lee's vision is what made our area grow."

Berklee City Music is the college's primary community-service outlet, offering mentoring and Saturday classes for talented urban middle school and high school teens. And thanks to funding from the college's annual Encore Gala benefit, founded by President Berk and Mrs. Susan G. Berk in 1995, as well as support from the Theodore R. & Vivian M. Johnson Foundation, Berklee City Music is currently able to offer more than 50 deserving students a Summer Youth Scholarship for Excellence in Music (SYSTEM 5) for the college's Summer Performance Program. In addition, up to six of the most talented SYSTEM 5 recipients are awarded four-year, full-tuition scholarships to attend Berklee full time. And when they get here, they prove that they're ready to play.

"This year's City Music continuing students have upheld the standard set in the last two years," Warner says, "a number of them attaining advanced placement into upper-semester courses."

One of the largest of Berklee's recent outreach accomplishments has been its role in the founding of the Boston Arts Academy (BAA), the city's first high school for the visual and performing arts. Opened in 1998, the school represents a collaboration between the Boston Public Schools and the Pro Arts Consortium, an alliance of six Boston-area arts-focused institutions of higher education. It wasn't easy getting the BAA going. Berk, who for part of the development process served as Pro Arts president, says that it was particularly difficult finding and renovating a site, given the competitive real-estate market in Boston at the time.

"All that was extremely time-consuming," says Berk, "but now there's a wonderful BAA just blocks away from the Berklee campus....We have a continuing close relationship with it."

Berklee's help in getting the Arts Academy off the ground, together with the college's outreach efforts, has gotten the attention of city officials. Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston says President Berk's accomplishments will continue working long after he himself has stopped.

"Through his strong support of the Boston Arts Academy and outreach efforts on behalf of Berklee City Music, President Lee Eliot Berk has dramatically increased musical and educational opportunities for the young people of Boston," Menino says. "His commitment to expand the mission of Berklee College of Music is commendable and is a model for all those in higher education. Though President Berk is stepping down, his legacy of service will continue to benefit our city for years to come. We can look forward to the rewards his vision will bring."

Jason Roeder is Berklee's Communications Editor/Writer.