Berklee City Music Celebrates Three Decades Empowering Young Artists The program has given generations of musicians-sometimes within the same family-the tools, opportunities, and scholarships to do what they love.
By
Jennifer H. McInerney
July 8, 2024
Berklee City Music students perform at the High School Academy Winter Showcase in 2023.
Image by Omari Spears
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Berklee City Music, an unparalleled educational enrichment initiative that supports youth in underserved communities locally and, now, globally.
Misael Martinez, assistant vice president of Education Outreach and Social Entrepreneurship, describes City Music as an holistic approach to training performing artists, building leaders, and fostering community development.
Leading up to the anniversary, an ensemble of Berklee musicians celebrated by composing an upbeat, uplifting official City Music anthem, called That Feeling, to evoke the joy derived from identifying one's passion, having the freedom to pursue one's dreams, and ultimately exploring and fulfilling one's potential as an artist. Collaboratively written by Berklee alumni and City Music Ambassadors Theron Feemster '00 (aka Neff-U) and Niu Raza BM '18, along with Martinez and guest artist Badger, the song's refrain- It's about that feeling when you do what you love, when you can be anything you want -reflects the sentiments of thousands of students who've had the opportunity to experience Berklee City Music over the past three decades.
Watch the video for That Feeling, Berklee City Music's inaugural anthem:
Since the 1990s, Berklee City Music has been making that feeling a reality, first in Boston's neighboring communities, then nationally, and now internationally through a comprehensive online curriculum and the ever-expanding City Music Network of partner sites.
City Music offers out-of-school music education programming to students in grades four through 12 during the academic year as well as an intensive summertime offering at the high school and college levels. Students audition for a spot in the program and receive intensive instruction from Berklee faculty, including musicianship and music theory classes, ensembles, mentorship, weekly master classes, workshops with visiting artists, and the PULSE online music curriculum. An integral piece is financial support-since 1995, the program has awarded more than $24 million in scholarships, funded in part by Amplify Berklee, an annual gala for City Music that last year raised over $1.2 million.
Abria Smith, Kaimy Masse, Nichelle Mungo, and City Music founder J. Curtis Warner Jr. on stage during a City Music concert in the '90s
In the early '90s, when public school arts programs were being cut, the leadership at Berklee College of Music sought to provide supplemental education along with financial aid to school children in surrounding Boston communities, where such after-school opportunities were not otherwise readily available.
[Past Presidents] Lee Berk and Roger Brown had a strong belief in the power and inspiration of music education for young children, notes Krystal Banfield, vice president for Education Outreach and Social Entrepreneurship.
From its inception, City Music set out to open doors and broaden the horizons of children of all abilities and interests through creative expression.
It's a lifelong journey that develops the mind and spirit and cultivates the entire person so that they find their purpose and find their voice, Banfield says. Everyone has art in them, particularly music, and this program has benefits well beyond learning about music.
Berklee City Music includes the after-school High School Academy for grades nine through 12 and the Preparatory Academy on Saturdays for students in grades four through eight. The High School Academy runs for 24 weeks from September through May, offering master classes, music theory and musicianship classes, ensemble opportunities, and visiting artist master classes. The Preparatory Academy follows the Berklee academic calendar but meets on Saturdays, with weekly classes in music, dance, and theater, plus performance workshops, creative management courses, and master classes.
City Music students also have the opportunity to receive scholarships to participate in Berklee's five-week summer music performance program, Aspire, which draws high school and college students from 70 countries. Aspire offers a comprehensive curriculum to enhance students' instrumental and vocal mastery and includes one-on-one instruction with Berklee faculty, ensemble opportunities, and explorations of music industry topics, such as songwriting, music production, music business, music therapy, and more. To date, City Music has awarded 1,900 scholarships to students taking part in the summer program.
City Music students perform at the High School Academy Winter Showcase in 2023.
Image by Omari Spears
It's magical for students to have the opportunity to immerse themselves in this one-of-a-kind educational experience with students from all over the world, notes Martinez. They create friendships and bonds that last throughout their lives. And they have access they wouldn't otherwise have to Berklee faculty in Berklee facilities.
Three decades ago, a young percussionist who had taken a detour on his musical path became one of the very first students in the Berklee City Music program. Twenty-year-old Sean Skeete had dreams of attending Berklee but, until then, those dreams had been just out of reach. At the time, he was employed at Lord & Taylor in Downtown Crossing selling shoes. One of his loyal customers was Bruce Nifong, a professor of ensembles at Berklee. Nifong and fellow professor David Cowan invited Skeete to join the fledgling summer program that ev
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Berklee City Music Celebrates Three Decades Empowering Young Artists The program has given generations of musicians-sometimes within the same family-the tools, opportunities, and scholarships to do what they love.
