The Berklee Performance Center is a 1,215-seat theatre located on Massachusetts Avenue in the Back Bay area of Boston, Massachusetts. [1] It is the largest theatre space on the Berklee College of Music campus and is used primarily for college-affiliated activities. Presenters from outside the Berklee community also rent it for performances of all kinds. In 2009, the Berklee Performance Center hosted a total of 200 events. [2]
In 1972, Berklee purchased the Fenway Theatre at 136 Massachusetts Avenue. [1] The 1915 movie palace, designed by Thomas Lamb, was renovated and reopened as the Berklee Performance Center in 1976. [3]
Berklee College of Music uses the facility to present its most popular and heavily produced student concert events, such as the Singers Showcase and the International Folk Festival. [4] It is also the home of major faculty concerts such as Fall Together, the annual concert by the Jazz Composition Department faculty. Other Berklee-affiliated public events such as ticketed concerts during the Beantown Jazz Festival, produced by the college since 2006, [5] and the Music Series at Berklee, which pairs professional musicians such as Issac Delgado, Don Was, and Gary Burton with student ensembles, [6] are also presented at the Berklee Performance Center. Besides being used extensively by student performers, students enrolled in Music Production and Engineering courses use the theatre's recording studios and video taping facilities in classroom projects.
The Berklee Performance Center is also a popular rental venue for presenters of music and performances of all types. Since it opened, a wide range of artists, including Talking Heads, Thomas Dolby, [7] Melissa Ferrick, [8] Chick Corea, [9] Bill Frisell, [10] Sonny Rollins, [11] and comedians Bill Maher [12] and Louis C.K. [13] have recorded there.
For the Fall 2012 season, the headliners include Rockapella, Franco Corso, Pentatonix, Glen Hansard, Melody Gardot, Béla Fleck, Snarky Puppy, Clannad, Zoë Keating, Alfie Boe, Henry Rollins, Aimee Mann, and Mary Black. [14]
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John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. In 2013, Down Beat described Zorn as "one of our most important composers" and in 2020 Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a leader. A number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", and "Airegin", have become jazz standards. Rollins has been called "the greatest living improviser".
William Richard Frisell is an American jazz guitarist, composer and arranger. Frisell first came to prominence at ECM Records in the 1980s, as both a session player and a leader. He went on to work in a variety of contexts, notably as a participant in the Downtown Scene in New York City, where he formed a long working relationship with composer and saxophonist John Zorn. He was also a longtime member of veteran drummer Paul Motian's groups from the early 1980s until Motian's death in 2011. Since the late 1990s, Frisell's output as a bandleader has also integrated prominent elements of folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll and Americana. He has six Grammy nominations and one win.
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including rock, hip hop, reggae, salsa, heavy metal and bluegrass.
Hiromi Uehara, known professionally as Hiromi, is a Japanese jazz composer and pianist. She is known for her virtuosic technique, energetic live performances and blending of musical genres such as stride, post-bop, progressive rock, classical and fusion in her compositions.
Alan Dawson was an American jazz drummer and percussion teacher based in Boston.
Melissa Ferrick is an American singer-songwriter. They are a music professor at Northeastern University and at Berklee College of Music.
Marvin "Smitty" Smith is an American jazz drummer and composer.
Burlington High School is located at 123 Cambridge Street in Burlington, Massachusetts. Burlington High School is a four-year comprehensive high school that is credited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
Boston Arts Academy (BAA) in Boston, Massachusetts, USA is Boston's first and only high school for the visual and performing arts and is a partnership between Boston Public Schools and the ProArts Consortium. ProArts, a group of six arts colleges and universities in the Boston area, pushed the city to open the school, which was founded in 1998. The Consortium continues to support the school with performance space, music lessons and free college-level classes to BAA students.
The Bridge is a studio album by jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins, recorded in 1962. It was Rollins' first release following a three-year sabbatical and was his first album for RCA Victor. The saxophonist was joined by the musicians with whom he recorded for the next segment of his career: Jim Hall on guitar, Bob Cranshaw on double bass and Ben Riley on drums.
Live is a live album by guitarist Bill Frisell released on the Gramavision label. It was released in 1995 and features a performance by Frisell, bassist Kermit Driscoll and drummer Joey Baron recorded in 1991 at Terceros Encuentros de Nueva Musica, Teatro Lope de Vega, Seville, Spain.
Sonny Rollins + 3 is an album by jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins, released on the Milestone label in 1995, featuring performances by Rollins with Bob Cranshaw, Stephen Scott, Jack DeJohnette, Tommy Flanagan and Al Foster.
Lawrence Berk was the founder of Berklee College of Music, a pianist, composer and arranger, and educator.
The Music Production & Engineering (MP&E) Major at Berklee College of Music is notable for attempting to give students an integrated understanding of the recording and production process, rather than focusing on the engineering aspects alone. Courses cover the technologies for documenting music, as well as the collaborative elements of studio work, and the business of recording.
The Fenway Theatre (1915–1972) of Boston, Massachusetts, was a cinema and concert hall in the Back Bay, located at no.136 Massachusetts Avenue at Boylston Street.
Jazz meditation refers to guided meditation practice that incorporates live instrumental jazz music. During a typical jazz meditation performance, a meditation guide or teacher is accompanied by one or more musicians, and musical improvisation is used as an anchor for mindfulness techniques such as visualization and breathing exercises. An audience of seated participants meditate in response to live music and the teacher's spoken instructions.
