The Groove: Asian Culture and Music Festival

The Asian Club at Berklee presents the inaugural Asian Culture and Music Festival.
February 1, 2012

Last semester, the Asian Club at Berklee put on the first-ever Asian Culture and Music Festival. The event was held at the BPC and showcased both traditional and contemporary Asian music while celebrating the cultural diversity at Berklee.

Aries Deng, a second-semester student at Berklee and president of the Asian Club, organized the festival because she felt there was a void that needed to be filled: "I've attended a lot of cultural festivals about Latin music, Caribbean music, African American music, etc., but I couldn't find anything related to Asian music," Deng explains. "Also, I want to show Berklee people, or even people in Boston, how amazing Asian music is, and break the stereotypical image of Asian music—Japanese koto and Chinese erhu. Fortunately, everyone wanted to help make it happen, so I decided to put on the festival."

As Deng had hoped, the show totally defied my expectations; I thought all of the performances were going to be traditional Asian pieces. They did a great job of fusing Eastern and Western music and culture, and presented it in a way that was both visually and aurally appealing for all members of the mixed-nationality audience.

Read more about the Asian Culture and Music Festival at BerkleeGroove.com.