Berklee Students Launch First Asian Music and Culture Festival

The Asian Students at Berklee Club is bringing the school's diverse Asian community into the spotlight with its first Asian Music and Culture Festival to be held at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, on October 24, at 8:15 p.m. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at Ticketmaster.com.

The concert—a series of performances featuring both traditional and contemporary music from China, Indonesia, Korea, Mongolia, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand - will underscore the wide vocabulary of students who have grown up influenced by Asian cultural traditions. For example, students will perform traditional Mongolian throat singing, and another student will play the taiko (a traditional Japanese wide drum) with a rock band.

"The festival is a way for Asian students to express their roots, but it also serves as a gateway for other students to gain exposure to Asian music and culture," said Isaku Kageyama, a member of the Asian Students at Berklee Club and second semester professional music student. "Berklee is one of the few schools that truly celebrates this kind of diversity."

The Asian Students at Berklee club is open to all Asian and interested students who attend Berklee. Its purpose is to promote social, cultural, and musical networking opportunities and events for its constituency and for the Berklee community. The club helps to raise multi-cultural and multi-national awareness on campus and builds a community and provides specialized support for Berklee's Asian and international student population.