Berklee's Helping Hands

Berklee City Music Program Receives $1 Million for National Expansion

The Berklee City Music Network nationwide took a dramatic step forward with the recent commitment of $1 million from an anonymous foundation. This financial support provides the funds for Berklee to take its successful Boston-based contemporary music education program to youth across America.

The City Music Network will provide in-person music instruction by professionally trained mentor-instructors and online educational support through the Berklee PULSE method; a cutting-edge curriculum that centers on contemporary music styles. Participating students get a unique opportunity to develop their talent. Working with locally based partners throughout the country, Berklee aims to dramatically expand access for young people to a high-quality music education at no cost to students. Matched by the college’s own commitment of $1 million, this investment makes an exciting vision a reality.

Anonymous Donor Steps Up

According to a friend of Berklee who prefers to remain anonymous, he has always been interested in aspiring young musicians. He wanted to meet them, listen to them perform, understand their musical aspirations, and support them. Eschewing receptions and events, this anonymous donor attended Berklee performances on his own and unannounced to enjoy the music of young Berklee students. As a generous supporter of the Berklee City Music Program for several years, this donor has enabled many talented but disadvantaged high-school students to attend the Berklee Five-Week Summer Performance Program. For many, this generosity provided a stepping stone to full-tuition scholarships at Berklee.

Recently, this donor made a commitment to give $200,000 per year for five years to augment the number of scholarships Berklee can offer students. With this donation, this friend of the college has dramatically expanded opportunities for young people to develop skills and creativity and become a part of the Berklee community.

Renowned Drummers Accessible for Berklee Student Projects

Berklee is grateful to Submersible Music for donating the latest version of DrumCore to the college, providing our songwriters and composers enhanced tools for creating great-sounding drum tracks, including content created by world-class drummers specializing in a multitude of styles. DrumCore is a powerful loop librarian with an extensive search engine function. Content can be easily searched based on drummer, style, feel, and tempo. The program also enables users to create their own metadata categories. With its drag-and-drop capability, DrumCore enables users to easily export audio and MIDI files to Digital Performer, Live, Logic, Pro Tools, and other popular sequencing and recording software. This gift comes from the efforts of alumnus Dave Dysart ’87, who leads the DrumCore group within Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc. This software allows Berklee students to gain access to high-quality drummers for use on their own musical projects—a resource Dysart says he wishes he had when he was a Berklee student.