Berklee and APM Music Launch Global Catalog Bringing Student-Created Music to Film, TV, and Beyond

Berklee students and alumni have a new way to bring their music into the professional marketplace through the Berklee Music Library, a production music catalog launched in partnership with APM Music. Featuring tracks created by students at Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee, the catalogue is available to license worldwide for film, television, advertising, sports, gaming, and other visual media.

The library was developed through the Syncubator, an industry-driven Berklee program supported by the Career Center that helps move students’ work from creation to market. Participants contribute as songwriters, performers, and producers, as well as through A&R, publishing, marketing, and catalog management. Along the way, they can build professional credits, reach industry decision-makers, and potentially earn income from their work.

“This is A&R in action,” said Dr. LaMarcus Miller, professor of voice and executive director of the Syncubator. “We’re identifying exceptional Berklee talent, curating and developing projects, and preparing that music for the professional marketplace. Music for visual media can’t just be auditory cheesecake. It has to be strategic. It has to serve the story, elevate the picture, and function in multiple ways while still standing on its own creatively.”

The idea for the program grew out of a question Miller and his collaborators had been considering: What if students did not just learn about the sync industry, but could participate in it while still at Berklee?

It gained momentum after Adam Weitz, vice president of film and television at APM Music, attended Berklee Career Jam and saw the depth of talent across the institution. The Student Sync Club had already brought together students interested in music supervision and sync licensing, and the Syncubator turned that early effort into a structured program spanning both the creative and business sides of the industry. Miller leads the program alongside Hayley Thompson-King, associate professor of voice and director of operations for the Syncubator.

“I see my work on the Syncubator project as a way to actualize my primary goal as an educator: fostering financially meaningful career opportunities where emerging professionals can employ the skills they have acquired here,” Thompson-King said. “This program guides our students to establish what can be career-long relationships that support economic stability in their creative pursuits.”

The Berklee Music Library launched with two releases, Modern American Voices and A Berklee Christmas, which each feature contemporary arrangements of familiar public-domain music, including “Yankee Doodle” and “Deck the Halls.” Future releases will respond to areas of demand in visual media while highlighting Berklee talent. A pop/R&B album led by alumnus Jevon Garrett is now in development, bringing together vocalists, songwriters, producers, and other creative collaborators, including Berklee songwriting faculty members Keli Nicole Price and Antea Birchett, who are serving on the project’s A&R team.

“Working with Berklee artists and alumni through the Syncubator has opened my ears and my perspective to so much new music, new ideas, and new possibilities,” Garrett said. “It has challenged me to think beyond what we know and ask a bigger question: What will the next sound of Berklee musicians and the next wave of music sound like?”

The team is also developing music for potential use around the 2028 Summer Olympics, including cinematic underscore for athlete profiles and high-energy vocal tracks for promotional uses.

“Students aren’t just making songs. They’re learning how to make music that has a job,” Miller said. “They have to ask: Where can this music live? Who is going to use it? What does a music supervisor, editor, producer, or broadcaster need from us? That means considering whether a piece works for picture, whether its structure is useful to an editor, and whether a music supervisor can find it. Students also learn how creativity works alongside deadlines, collaboration, rights, and commercial needs.”

That professional education extends beyond writing and producing music. For Emma Giron, a senior and the Syncubator’s metadata and catalog manager, the program has offered a closer look at the detailed work required behind the scenes. “There is a lot of information to organize and extreme attention to detail required, but knowing that you helped publish this team’s music is very rewarding,” Giron said.

Co-owned by Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group, APM represents more than 300 global libraries and offers a catalog of more than one million tracks. Its music is licensed across hundreds of films and television shows and used by major sports organizations, including the NFL, MLB and its 30 teams, the NHL, and MLS.

“At Berklee, we seek out partnerships that turn creative growth into professional momentum,” said Stefanie Henning, vice president of career strategy and services. “This partnership gives our students the chance to build industry experience, earn income, and bring their music to a global audience.”

For Miller, the program's impact becomes clear when students stop thinking only about whether a professor likes their work and begin asking whether an editor, producer, or music supervisor could use it. “That's the transformation I'm interested in: moving students from student identity to professional identity while they're still at Berklee,” he said. “This is a love song to human talent,” he said. “We're building a professional pathway for the actual students sitting in our classrooms: their voices, their musicianship, their ideas, their cultural perspectives, and their ability to make something another human being wants to hear.”

Students and alumni interested in the Syncubator program can learn more at a town hall on Friday, October 9, from 1 p.m. to 2:50 p.m. in the Lawrence and Alma Berk Recital Hall (1A), located at 1140 Boylston Street. The session will introduce the program and its upcoming Olympics-themed album projects.

Applications for the Syncubator’s 2027–2028 creative cohort are open to eligible college and conservatory students and alumni. Songwriters, top-liners, vocalists, instrumentalists, producers, and engineers across all genres may apply individually or as a group. Applications are due by 11:55 p.m. on Friday, November 6.