What were some highlights of the Five-Week Summer Performance Program?
I love my musicianship class with [associate professor of ear training] Berke McKelvey. He's an awesome teacher. For the level I'm at, you hear a melody and you have to write it down. And that's hard. I think I like it because it's so challenging.

In my private lessons with [associate professor of strings] Mimi Rabson, I'm learning how to improvise Latin jazz, Latin salsa music, mambo, and funk fusion. I'm learning how to improv on that stuff in blues scales and harmonic scales—all these scales I didn't know existed. All I listen to at home is Latin, salsa, and tropical music, but I've never played it. She helped me out a lot with it. All of my private lessons were improvising over Latin music. That's helping me in my Latin ensemble with [percussion professor] Victor Mendoza. Coming from a Mexican background, seeing Victor here as a professor of music makes me proud of my race and Hispanic background.

How does Berklee compare with your high school experience?
You don't feel judged here at Berklee. Everyone's here for music. Of course people are here to meet other people, but the main focus is music. People from all over the world are here. I've met more people from Italy than from Texas, where I'm from.

My musicianship teacher, Berke McKelvey, told us: "In high school chemistry class you have to be a chemist. In math class you have to be a mathematician. At home you have to homework, take out the dog, take out the trash. But when you're here, you can be you; you can be a musician 100 percent of the time. For a lot of you, that's probably going to be a relief." While I was here, I did all of my homework. I don't do it all at home.

How has the program contributed to your sense of independence?
I love how the five-week program gives you a sense that you are already a student here at Berklee. It really gives you a taste of how being a college student feels like and the independence and responsibility that lies behind that, especially when you're still a high school student like me who's not used to being on their own in an unfamiliar city. The five-week program has definitely boosted my determination for coming to Berklee when I graduate from high school.

Tell me about the visting artist clinics:
Listening to the backgrounds and histories of artists such as Wyclef Jean, Billy Bragg, and Melissa Ferrick helped me realize that you can do anything you set your mind to. Wyclef said he grew up on the streets and the Fugees made their first album in the basement of his uncle's house. That is very inspirational.

She's certainly done a lot of singing the past two summers, attending Berklee's Five-Week Summer Performance Program. She even got to attend her first real concert, and she learned from that, too. "I had a class [at Berklee] called Great Performers and [Justin Timberlake] was considered to be one of the greatest modern-day performers," Chinnery says. She saw that firsthand at a concert in Boston. "One time when he was singing, the section I was in stopped dancing. He realized that and came over."

But her biggest inspiration while in Boston wasn't Justin Timberlake; it was a homeless man she saw on the street. "He had the old music stands from behind the BPC and bottles and anything, and he's just making music. He didn't have that much, but he still had music."

Much the same could be said for Chinnery. The vocalist's single mother holds down three jobs to support her and her sister—working as a crossing guard for an elementary school, doing turndown service at Camille Bay Resort, and cleaning villas. The latter was how Chinnery made the connection that would ultimately allow her to come to Berklee. Her mother was cleaning jazz musician Steve Simon's home and asked him if he'd like to buy some jewelry Chinnery had made to raise money for a performance and creative arts camp. Simon asked to meet Chinnery, and from that day a partnership was formed.

"I started performing with his band, Steve Simon and the Jazz Islanders, at this place called the Beach Bar. Every Sunday afternoon I'd sing with them, and they'd send around a hat asking for money for me. He got me plane tickets," says Chinnery. "He called up two of his friends, was like, 'I have this wonderful girl and she's trying to go to Berklee, do you guys think you could help?' They were like, 'If you believe in this girl, Steve, I'm right behind you.'"

Since her own school doesn't have a music program, Simon also helped Chinnery attend St. John Trade Winds School for the Arts, an after-school program where she has private lessons and is part of a choir. Eventually, she has a dream of opening a full-time arts school on the island. But first the high school senior is aiming to get into Berklee next year, and she's working hard in the hopes of earning a scholarship. "When I finish Berklee I plan on going back home and building a school there. St. John is small—it's only 9 miles long—but somewhere there I'll build something." Considering the determination she's shown thus far, she probably will.

The school hadn't had any flooding, but there was a lot of wind and rain damage, and the National Guard was still being housed on campus. Army cots littered the dance floor. NOCCA immediately began contacting its students with information on schools across the country offering assistance. Letters were posted in the cafeteria and online with generous offers and scholarship opportunities for NOCCA students.

"Herbert Hoover High School in California even had a band concert and donated all their money to us," says Boillotat. "It was just amazing."

"We were thinking about sending me to a school in New York—they had all these host families that would house me," says Boillotat. "But I just couldn't leave. I needed to help out." Her sister, a senior at NOCCA, had transferred to North Carolina School for the Arts on a full scholarship, and her absence was hard on their mom. And Boillotat's loyalty to NOCCA wouldn't let her abandon it.

"I love New Orleans, and NOCCA has helped me so much," says Boillotat. "Just the people and everything about it has totally changed my life for the better."

Boillotat had started at NOCCA a year earlier than most—while she was still in the 8th grade. Her older sister had been studying drama at the school for years, so she already knew that it was where she wanted to go to focus on the saxophone. Its jazz program had been attended and taught by jazz greats such as Donald Harrison and Branford Marsalis. "My [other] school didn't even have a jazz band. I'd never played jazz before," says Boillotat.

Well before she planned on attending, Boillotat set up a meeting with the head of the jazz program for advice on how to prepare herself for the highly competitive school. He encouraged her to take private lessons from Bryce Winston and even arranged for NOCCA to pay for them. Soon she was attending the school on weekends.

Boillotat looked forward to her freshman year, when she could begin attending NOCCA half days during the week. The other half would be spent at Patrick Taylor Science and Technology. But she'd only been at the school for two weeks when Katrina hit, effectively putting her life on hold.

Finally, in January 2006, NOCCA reopened. Boillotat's lessons accelerated to make up for the lost time, and her playing improved markedly. She even played with a NOCCA ensemble at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival—her first time ever attending the festival was onstage. "I even got to announce the song," says Boillotat.

By the time summer rolled around, she had received scholarships from both NOCCA and Berklee College of Music to attend Berklee's Five-Week Summer Performance Program.

"I want to take advantage of everything here, because I want to leave here a totally different musician," says Boillotat. "I'm going to a lot of the concerts that they have and I find that I'm taking advantage of a lot of the teacher's office hours. I'll go down to the basement [of 150 Mass. Ave.] and listen to different people play and just kind of sit in. I love doing that."

Interacting with other students in the five-week program, Boillotat saw how lucky she was to grow up in New Orleans, surrounded by music. "I talked to this one boy from Puerto Rico, and he gets a jazz station once a week from midnight to two," says Boillotat. "I really have realized how fortunate I am. . . . I feel like I've gotten a huge head start."

"That's the hardest double major to get into and the hardest one to complete, so I've got a lot of work ahead of me," she says. After that, she plans to take advantage of the accelerated MBA program that Suffolk University offers to Berklee graduates. And after all these years of school? "I'd like to start my own company, my own label, my own managing business. Eventually I'd like to incorporate my own studio into it," she says. "I want to make it an empire!"

Snyder is used to dreaming big and working hard. In addition to her musical interests, she's a lifeguard, a member of the Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department, and an EMT. To get the EMT certification, she took classes two nights a week and one Saturday a month for four months, all while finishing her last semester of school. "I've basically got two parts to my life: the lifesaving business and the music business," Snyder says. "I've wanted to be an EMT ever since I was a little girl, and a lifeguard, and I've done them both. But music is my first love."

"That's my B plan," she says. "My A plan is music."

Snyder visited Berklee twice before enrolling in the Five-Week Summer Performance Program. Two years ago, while visiting relatives in Massachusetts, her mom surprised her with a tour of the college. Last year, she participated in the Berklee Percussion Festival. There, she attended clinics featuring such artists as Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, Eguie Castrillo, and Sheila E. "That's when I really got a good look at the city and the school and fell in love with it," she says. But it's not just the famous names that drew her to Berklee. The personal touch of a smaller school has shone through even in her few visits. Her student-run tour was led by Marcus Santos, a hand percussionist from Brazil. When she returned for the Berklee Percussion Festival, he was her R.A. And this summer she ran into him—now an alumnus—in the computer labs.

Each summer has been a step toward Snyder's ultimate goal—attending Berklee full time. But she almost didn't make it to the Five-Week Performance Program. She just couldn't come up with the tuition. "At home it's just me and my mom, and we have very limited funding," Snyder says. "When I originally told my mom, she was real skeptical about it. She didn't want me to get my hopes up … because she knew we couldn't afford it." And, indeed, the original scholarship that Snyder won wasn't enough to cover the cost. So she decided that she wouldn't be able to come and notified her employer that she would be available for the whole summer.

Then she received a letter in late May informing her that she was the recipient of the Evans Scholarship from the D'Addario Foundation. It didn't cover the full cost of the program, but "that made it possible," Snyder says. She discussed it with her mother, who fully supported her. "She said, ‘Let's go for it, Bonnie, let's put everything we've got into getting you there,'" Snyder says. She gathered the rest of the money from various sources, such as sponsorships from the Kiwanis of Maryland and her grandfather's business, graduation gifts, and her part-time job.

But by that point, the deadlines for housing applications had passed. "That was late May, early June. That was cutting it close," Snyder says. Her mother called the school to try to work out alternate arrangements and was able to find a spot. Her advice for future applicants: "Make sure you get your housing applications in early!"

When she was here, she was excited to experiment with different instruments and beats. The open drum circle was one of her favorite classes, because of the variety. "We played djembe, an African drum, last week. And the week before that we started out with some conga stuff," Snyder says.

By far, the highlight of the five-week program for her was her private lesson, which was taught by percussion department faculty member Rod Morgenstein. Before classes started he performed for the drummers, and "he blew me away," Snyder says. She was intimidated when she found out that Morgenstein had done two compilations with Jordan Rudess, the keyboardist with Dream Theater, her favorite band. "But he really sat down and worked with me," Snyder says. "I told him I wanted to get into some progressive rock tempos. He gave me a sheet of music in 7/8, 15/16, 12/8, just all sorts of weird times."

Of course music isn't easy, especially for a female drummer in a field dominated by guys. "I was really nervous when I got here, but I realized that I'm here for my own benefit, to worry about how I play and how I can improve my own talent and to work with the teachers. I'm not here … to compare who's the top kid."

Yet the opportunity to play in front of and with other students—outside of classes as well as in—is what attracted her to the five-week program.

"One of the reasons I'm here is to become less shy in my playing," she says. Her rock/pop ensemble, in which students practice for a performance at the end of the program, is one way to do that. Another is after-hours jam sessions. A friend of Snyder's reserved an ensemble room one night and gathered some people together. "We just played what we thought, what we felt. I'm not used to meeting people I've never worked with before and just playing," Snyder says. "It was really neat."