Each semester, dozens of Berklee students swap their Berklee IDs for passports, traveling across the ocean to study at Berklee's campus in Valencia, Spain. Located on the country's east coast, Valencia is a vibrant, friendly city known for its musical richness. Berklee Valencia offers four master's degree programs, classes for undergraduates who spend either a semester or their first year in Valencia, and summer programs focusing on performance, opera, and symphonic bands.
Precious Perez spent a semester at Berklee Valencia in the fall of 2017. A dual major in vocal performance and music education, Perez is a visually impaired singer-songwriter, guitarist, and ukulele player who found both academic and creative inspiration there. Last summer, she released a four-song EP titled Agua de Valencia, which draws deeply on her time in Spain. We spoke to Perez about how her experience has helped her grow as a person and a musician.
What made you want to study abroad in Valencia? I have some family friends who moved to Valencia a few years ago, and when I was considering colleges, they told me Berklee had a campus there. I knew I definitely wanted to study abroad. I wanted to immerse myself in another culture.
How did you prepare for your semester abroad? I'm Puerto Rican and I speak Spanish, but I didn't have the confidence I wanted to have. I ended up taking a Spanish class at Berklee to brush up on my skills before I went. I was really excited to go somewhere completely new and experience things I would otherwise never experience.
What did you enjoy about the Berklee Valencia experience?
Want to Study in Spain?
The Valencia campus offers a global perspective for students at all stages of their Berklee experience. Boston is so busy. It's overwhelming-a running-around kind of busy. Valencia was the same amount of busy, but it didn't feel that way. It's a smaller campus, and you really get to connect with people. There are master's students and undergraduate students, and you really get to know people. The staff members were all so nurturing. I got to know the staff really well because of my accessibility issues, so I was always dropping by the offices to say hi.
At the time, I was still taking my core classes, so I took some basics: ear training, harmony, jazz standards, psychology, Latin jazz ensemble. I had a class on Spanish culture and society, which was really cool. The teachers were wonderful-so energetic and passionate about what they do.
Did you participate in any programs outside of your classes? Yes! I took advantage of every opportunity that semester. I was part of the UN Ambassador program. I did events in the community-I was part of an event on Disability Day. I performed at the Fall in (Love With) Valencia concert, which featured Berklee students playing at the Bancaja Cultural Centre. I wanted to immerse myself in everything that was offered. I ended up pulling together a band from friends I made within a week to perform at the Fall in Love showcase.
What was it like to be a blind student in Valencia? I wasn't sure how accessible the city or the campus would be. It's an entirely different country, and I didn't know what to expect.
The first week was interesting because we had to go to a lot of different places for orientation, and I couldn't really do that independently. My family friends ended up helping me with a lot of those events. There was no Braille signage anywhere in the Berklee residence hall, so I had to count doors at first. We ended up putting a Braille label on the doorjamb of my room so that I could find it. And Chi Kim, who runs Berklee's assistive music technology lab in Boston, went to Valencia to set up an accessible workstation in case I needed to use it with my screen readers.
What were the challenges to getting around town? One of the biggest obstacles was navigating Valencia itself. They don't have talking or beeping walk lights at crosswalks. I did work with an orientational mobility instructor, but I never felt safe crossing streets by myself. As I made friends, I was able to get around town with them. I also used a taxi service-I would send a message ahead to help the driver find me. It was empowering to know I had a way to get somewhere if I had to.
What was the approach to accessibility like in Spain? I found the attitude very different from the U.S. In the States, people see a blind person, and they think, You poor thing! The attitude in Spain was more like, I can see you need help-tell me how I can help you. Not everybody has to know or understand how to do things, but the willingness to help, and listen to the person, makes all the difference. I was surprised at how open everyone was-both at Berklee and in the city.
A lot of people in the blind community say that independence equals doing everything yourself. But everyone's definition of that is different. For example, I love interacting with people. If I need help and I get to meet somebody because of that, and they become my friend-that's great. That's one of the best parts of asking for help.
Your song Agua de Valencia, the title track on your EP, is inspired by your time there-are the other songs on your EP as well? Yes, Agua de Valencia just came to me one day. I was up all night making the demo for it. I showed it to my harmony professor Dani Flors. He added some chords to make it more interesting. Another professor, Sergio Mart nez, was always encouraging us to bring things we'd written into class, and try them out. So I did, and everyone was playing with my song. It was so cool to collaborate on something that came from my experience there.
I had gotten a few more song ideas while I was there, and I brought them back home. I thought it would be a perfect time to make an EP, and focu
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...
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...
28/08/2025
IBC stand 5.F81
Wowza to Reveal Next-Gen Video Streaming Innovations at IBC 2025
Amsterdam, August 28, 2025 Wowza, a leader in video streaming infrastructur...
Each semester, dozens of Berklee students swap their Berklee IDs for passports, traveling across the ocean to study at Berklee's campus in Valencia, Spain. Located on the country's east coast, Valencia is a vibrant, friendly city known for its musical richness. Berklee Valencia offers four master's degree programs, classes for undergraduates who spend either a semester or their first year in Valencia, and summer programs focusing on performance, opera, and symphonic bands. 
