Berklee Global Jazz Institute Workshop at the Newport Jazz Festival

Students will participate in several core classes throughout the week:

• Global Jazz Forum: The Berklee Global Jazz Institute artists' faculty workshops are a daily series of lectures addressing aesthetic, theoretical, and technical issues; analysis of music examples; interdisciplinary topics; and creative performance. Students will develop personal approaches to global jazz interpretation and improvisation. Class meetings will also include listening, ear training, improvisation, discussion, analysis, viewing of historical videos, and presentation of student projects.
• Directed Study in Improvisation: In this course, students will explore the various melodic and rhythmic roles of their specific instruments. Students will be mentored and coached by the Berklee Global Jazz Institute's world-renowned visiting artists on a daily basis. Homework may include assigned listening, practice assignments, solo transcriptions and performances of the transcriptions, and creative composition and performance projects. Students will learn how to practice and perform music that includes the techniques learned in class and from the recommended listening selections.
• Global Jazz Ensembles: Jazz ensembles will have a special focus on creative improvisation, compositions with emphasis on jazz repertoire, global jazz influences, rhythms, and folklore. Students will be mentored and coached by the Berklee Global Jazz Institute's world-renowned artists on a daily basis. Homework may include assigned listening, practice assignments, solo transcriptions, and creative composition and performance projects.
• Ensemble Performance Laboratory: The goal of this class is to integrate and improve the student’s creative performance skills through supervised performance and jam session situations. In this class, students will develop and focus their skills as necessary for the creative fulfillment of their instrumental and artistic role through performance of the global jazz repertoire. Upon satisfactory completion of this class, students will have completed a number of guided performance routines that will, directly or indirectly, address any problems they may have with technique, intonation, articulation, style orientation, improvisation, and ensemble-centered production (listening/response sensitivity), which in turn will increase their viability and confidence in the professional performance environment.

Below is a sample of a typical day in the program. 

Schedule subject to change

The last activity is the Friday performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, after which students are free to leave. There will be a courtesy bus back to Salve Regina to retrieve stored belongings, though students must clear out their dorm room Friday morning. Otherwise, students must bring their belongings to the festival or arrange their own transportation. There are storage facilities on the festival grounds.