Loretta Lynn Receives Berklee Doctorate in Nashville

Berklee honors a country music legend on the annual trek south.

By Rob Hayes
Berklee.edu Correspondent
March 19, 2007

Berklee has been traveling to the home of country music for 20 years now.  Each year, thanks to the efforts of faculty members Pat Pattison and Stephen Webber, 100-plus students spend their spring break sitting at the feet of the Nashville masters, learning the inside story from the industry’s top performers, songwriters, producers, publishers, and managers. After two decades, more than 400 Berklee alumni make the area their home, contributing their own creativity and skills to the industry.

This past weekend, Berklee was invited into country music’s temple—the Grand Ole Opry—to bestow an honorary doctor of music degree on its high priestess, songwriter and performer Loretta Lynn. An academic "honor guard," composed of Pattison; Webber; Debbie Bieri, senior vice president for institutional advancement; and Berklee president Roger Brown joined Lynn on center stage, following a video highlighting her career.

Before a sold-out Opry crowd—which included a very vocal Berklee student contingent—and for a national television and radio audience, President Brown described the history of the honorary degree, whose first recipient was Duke Ellington. He then praised Lynn for her remarkable, pioneering career, in which she has tackled a range of social issues, doing so long before anyone else in country music.

When Lynn formally received her degree, she was greeted with a thunderous standing ovation from every corner of the hall—and no doubt from her many fans in the broadcast audience.

President Roger Brown and Loretta Lynn
Photo by Chris Hollo
 

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Rob Hayes is Berklee's assistant vice president for public information.




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