First Presidential Visit to India

In April, Roger H. Brown became the first Berklee president to make an official visit to India. It was the next step following the 2014 establishment of the Berklee India Exchange, a platform for cultural conversation about Indian music. The exchange includes artist residencies, musical collaborations, and performances. It was launched on the heels of recent large-scale events, including concerts, clinics, workshops, and master classes with famed Indian musicians A. R. Rahman and Clinton Cerejo. Brown’s visit afforded opportunities to learn more about the music of India and the country’s booming entertainment industry, to interact with major Indian artists, and to explore possibilities for future artist visits to Berklee and future collaborations in India.

Brown’s three-city tour began in Chennai, where he met with A. R. Rahman H’14 and visited Rahman’s school, KM Music Conservatory, a preparatory school for grade school students. Brown attended the school’s annual spring concert of Indian classical music, featuring a phenomenal Qawwali ensemble, and a cappella, Western classical, electronic, and even opera musical selections. While at KM, Brown announced the establishment of the A. R. Rahman Scholarship at Berklee, the college’s first scholarship to be awarded exclusively to students from India. The first recipient will be admitted with the 2016 undergraduate class.

Brown made the announcement at a press conference attended by nearly 100 journalists ranging from reporters for local Tamil-language publications to national print, online, and broadcast journalists. With cameras rolling, Brown and Rahman discussed the scholarship and Rahman’s work with Berklee students and faculty and the honorary doctorate he received during his visit in October 2014. They invited students from across in India to peruse Berklee.edu/india for more information about the college.

Brown’s next stop was Mumbai, the sixth most populous city in the world with roughly 21 million inhabitants. While in the city for meetings, Brown was graciously hosted by A. P. Hinduja and his wife, Harsha. Their daughter, Satya ’04, studied at Berklee. During official meetings and a social gathering hosted by the Hindujas, Brown connected with educators, entertainment industry executives, and a number of popular musical artists. Among them was producer, composer, arranger, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Clinton Cerejo, who was a Berklee visiting artist in 2013.

Brown’s final stop was New Delhi, the seat of the Indian government. In Noida, a quickly expanding city that neighbors New Delhi, lies the future site of the Global Music Institute (GMI). GMI, fast outgrowing its first campus in the center of New Delhi, focuses on contemporary music education and its intersection with Indian traditional and folkloric styles. The school’s founders, brothers and Berklee alumni, Aditya ’10 and Tarun Balani ’10, gave a tour of the new campus, with a classroom building and a dormitory, which will serve as the new home for one of India’s first contemporary music institutions built on Berklee’s teaching methods.

The first presidential visit to Chennai, Mumbai, and New Delhi gave a glimpse of the myriad cultures of India in addition to its rich musical traditions and thriving entertainment industry. It facilitated renewing acquaintances, forming new relationships, and meeting musicians who may visit the Boston campus in the near future as visiting artists. With a flood of performance requests for the Berklee Indian Ensemble directed by faculty member Annette Philip ’09, and a future A. R. Rahman scholar on the horizon, the possibilities for Berklee–India collaborations look bright.

Liz Lupton is a publicist in Berklee’s Office of Media Relations.