Two Cultures. Millions Reached. One Berklee Connection.

After meeting at Berklee in their first semester, couple Annie Dickinson ’22 and Zhengxi Zhang BM ’23 built music careers and a social media following that reaches millions in China and beyond.

But their first meeting wasn’t nearly so glamorous. On the first day of classes, Dickinson was five minutes early, sitting front and center in Ear Training 4.

Zhang, known as Z, arrived late.

“The professor’s yelling at him for being late on the first day,” Dicksinson recalls, laughing. “And I was like, ‘Man, what a jerk!’”

Not exactly love at first sight.

But the duo landed in the same advanced class for a reason: Both have perfect pitch. And, although they traveled vastly different routes to Berklee, they had something more important in common. They wanted a college experience where music wasn’t merely a hobby, but the essential core of their studies. 

Years later, they’re married, making music together in New York, running their own music production studio, and sharing their cross-cultural life on social media—including 980,000-plus followers on the Chinese social app Douyin.

For Z, Berklee College of Music represented the pinnacle of music education. As a teen jazz pianist in Beijing who dreamed of producing, he found Berklee while searching online for the world’s best music schools. He attended Berklee’s Aspire: Five-Week Music Performance Intensive summer program on a full scholarship and then enrolled as an undergraduate with the Wang Leehom Scholarship, a full-tuition award supporting promising musicians from mainland China.  

Meanwhile, Dickinson’s route began in rural Pennsylvania, where she played classical violin. Her music teacher dad introduced her to GarageBand as a kid, sparking a fascination with production. 

For college, she wanted something unusual: a school where she could pursue violin and production without remaining strictly in the classical world. Berklee College of Music was a perfect fit.

Then came Ear Training.

Z noticed Dickinson immediately. She was the diligent student who did the homework and answered the professor’s questions. He, by his own account, was less industrious. “I thought she was super cute and super fun,” he says. 

“I wasn't as straight-edge, and Z was a bit more put together. We both grew,” Dickinson says.

As COVID-19 emerged in China, Z invited Dickinson to collaborate on a “We Are the World”-style song about Wuhan commissioned by a Chinese record label, but the pandemic soon sent them home in opposite directions. When they returned to campus in late 2021, their song, “TK,” was well-known in China—and they realized they could be more than collaborators. 

“I met someone on my exact frequency, from such a different background. I think Berklee’s one of the only places where that's possible.” 
—Zhengxi Zhang

In 2022, they began dating and eventually moved to New York City, where Dickinson took a full-time job at Nettwerk Music Group, where she is now director of A&R. Together, they opened a studio, Boomer Hotel, and developed a roster of indie, alternative, folk, and pop clients.

Then, an unexpected second career emerged.

In 2025, Z posted a casual video of Dickinson biking through Tiananmen Square on Douyin. This wasn’t unusual: Z loved taking videos, often sending them to family. But, this time, an agency specializing in cross-cultural couple content spotted them. Soon, videos of their daily life, music, families, cultural differences, and Chinese wedding were going viral. One video of them boarding a plane attracted 40 million views.

“It really blew up when it was time for us to get married, and Annie’s entire family came to China. Chinese people just have never seen a spectacle like that,” Z says.

“My family haven't traveled a lot. They think New York is too much. They're very rural, very traditional,” she says. The couple also held a wedding in rural Pennsylvania, and social media royalties covered the costs.

Now, they’re bona fide social media celebrities. 

“People stop us on the street. It doesn’t matter if we’re in an Uber or getting dinner—anywhere we’re around a Chinese population, it’s pretty likely that they've seen us on the internet. It's just the weirdest, craziest thing,” Dickinson says.

They believe their relationship resonates with Chinese audiences because it represents an alternative to an increasingly pragmatic approach to marriage, where financial security and social status can play an outsized role. Against the backdrop of an intense work culture, the pair’s decision to pursue creative ambitions together can appear unusually freeing.

“I think people watch us because they don’t relate. There’s a sense of novelty,” Dickinson says.

Their strategy is to treat their social presence almost like a sitcom about their lives: They’re an interracial couple who own a New York recording studio, travel, chase their musical dreams, and navigate different cultures. 

Their studio gives their online audience another window into their lives, while their social following has helped them make connections with well-known rising artists such as Lily Meola, Mon Rovia, Orville Peck, and Vacations. 

It’s a thoroughly modern creative partnership: music, media, technology, culture, entrepreneurship, and marriage. And both say Berklee made it possible.

“The environment [at Berklee] is just so ripe to foster connections like this. Everybody is there for the same reason: because they really want to do music.”  
—Annie Dickinson

“The environment is just so ripe to foster connections like this,” Dickinson says. Students converge from all over the world but already share something fundamental: “Everybody is there for the same reason: because they really want to do music.”

Without Berklee, Z says, meeting Dickinson wouldn’t have been possible.

“I met someone on my exact frequency, from such a different background. I think Berklee’s one of the only places where that's possible,” Z says.

Learn more about Annie Dickinson and Zhengxi Zhang and their studio Boomer Hotel.