Berklee Methods for India’s Classrooms

Thanks to a generous gift from Chandrika Tandon, a member of Berklee’s president’s advisory council, the college will expand its reach of high-quality music education via Berklee Tandon Global Clinics (BTGC) in India. The emphasis will be on providing sustainable access to these programs for talented youth in the region. BTGC is a new type of program that responds to the fast-changing landscape of higher education in the 21st century.

BTGC programs will be designed to give students the experience of learning music in the classroom. We will experiment with new models and present various formats tailored to the specific groups of music students with whom we work. These programs will be conducted independently or produced in collaboration with entities aligned with Berklee’s educational mission. Students will participate in lecture and technique classes, and attend special lectures on themes closely associated with the overall program concept. All participants will also perform in ensembles or work in a practical situation based on the program’s topics. BTGC will allow students to explore the essence of popular Western music, from sharing basic tools to take the students’ knowledge of the genre to the next level to helping them discover and achieve their full potential.

In addition to BTGC’s academic focus, we are also including strategic elements such as alumni engagement, sustainability, strategic partnerships, and local media participation. With the global expansion of Berklee’s brand and its presence represented in the Boston and Valencia campuses, this program aims to identify, train and deploy a select group of Berklee alumni to take the work to India. They will represent diverse backgrounds with expertise in performance, production, IT, video, social media, and other areas of the industry (as required by the specifics of each program). These alumni will be accomplished practitioners working at the forefront of the music industry, respected experts in their areas, and have an entrepreneurial spirit.

We will design and implement a communications campaign to disseminate program’s objective and attract target groups and promote the development of a partnership plan with media companies in the regions that will participate in the content production and distribution of available audio-visual assets via TV and social media channels. We have already begun to network with preeminent Indian entrepreneurs, organizations, and companies, and have tapped the support of number of popular artists, esteemed pandits and gurus.

“It’s a great development to have global clinics teaching Indian students about Western music utilizing Berklee’s methods,” says Clint Valladares, the director of the Berklee India Exchange. “We look forward to the formation of additional partnerships between Berklee and prominent figures in India to help this work move forward and begin to touch the lives of talented students in India.”

For more information about BTGC, contact Clint Valladares at cvalladares@berklee.edu.

Mirek Vana is Berklee’s global development officer