Berklee's Helping Hands

Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival 2008

The Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival, a free, all-day concert in the South End, has created a buzz that extends well beyond Boston. In September 2007, some of today’s hottest jazz performers arrived in Boston to find more than 70,000 music lovers enthusiastically embracing their sound. The college is proud to produce this uniquely Boston event, which is being discovered by a growing number of music enthusiasts each year.

Target, Dunkin’ Donuts, Sovereign Bank, and other contributors will support this year’s event, which runs between September 25 and September 27, 2008. Their generous backing will help Berklee build BeanTown into one of the finest festivals in the country. The college is grateful for its corporate sponsors’ generous support, without which this event would not be possible. Parents, alumni, prospective students, and music lovers contemplating a visit to Boston should mark their calendars to join the entire Berklee community at this fall’s Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival. Visit www.beantownjazzfestival.com(Opens in a new window) for details.

Fundraising Challenge Finds a Champion

The intersection of a compelling, time-sensitive need with the application of resources creates partnerships that work. Berklee is in the home stretch of its five-year challenge grant with the Theodore R. and Vivian M. Johnson Scholarship Foundation. The challenge is to raise $1.2 million by November 2008 in order to receive funds from the Johnson Foundation. Berklee has met its fundraising goals for each of the four preceding years, but the fifth-year goal is by far the most challenging. Once monies have been raised, they will create a fund that awards 11 full-tuition scholarships annually to economically disadvantaged young people completing the Berklee City Music Program.

With his generous donation, Michael Brown, a member of the Berklee Presidential Advisory Council, has helped the college to fulfill its part in the Johnson Foundation’s challenge. We appreciate Brown’s unwavering support for the talented young musicians enrolled in the Berklee City Music Program. To join Brown in fulfilling this challenge, contact me at momalley@berklee.edu.

Bill Holodnak Honors Jazz Great Frank Morgan

The afternoon of March 27, 2007, was filled with poignant moments when bebop legend and saxophone great Frank Morgan performed in the David Friend Recital Hall before a rapt crowd. Recognizing Morgan’s advanced age and recent health problems, the audience seemed to sense that this performance might be the last opportunity to hear Morgan’s sweet, soulful sound. As a result, it savored every note he played and hung on every word spoken that afternoon. Sadly, Morgan passed away nine months later on December 14, 2007, at the age of 73.

Morgan’s contributions to music were significant. Starting out as a teenager in jazz clubs in Los Angeles backing Billie Holiday, among many others, Morgan later became a major player on the bop scene. His personal struggles forced a 30-year hiatus from touring and performing; and for other performers, that might have been the end of the story. But remarkably, after three decades in and out of jail, Morgan revived his career and enjoyed great musical reviews domestically and abroad.

Berklee trustee Bill Holodnak, who has a deep love for jazz and an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, admired Morgan and his music. Last year, Holodnak brought both Morgan and best-selling author Michael Connelly to Berklee for the March 27 event. The billing was apt; Connelly had incorporated Morgan’s music into the setting of his 2007 novel The Overlook.

Holodnak and Connelly have since generously created an endowed fund at Berklee in Frank Morgan’s name that will award scholarships annually to talented students. Berklee is honored to have featured Morgan at the college, and his legacy will live on through the music of Berklee students. Special thanks go to Holodnak and Connelly for making this endowed fund possible.