Berklee Honors Ringo Starr, Lalah Hathaway, James Newton Howard, and Chuck Rainey at Commencement The entertainment legends received honorary doctorates for their immeasurable impact on music, film and television, and popular culture.
By
Daniel Pesquera
May 7, 2022
From left to right: Berklee President Erica Muhl; honorees Chuck Rainey, Lalah Hathaway, and James Newton Howard; and Berklee Provost Larry Simpson
Image by Mike Spencer
More than 900 graduates from 67 countries and 46 U.S. states came together to celebrate at the Agganis Arena in Boston for Berklee College of Music's 2022 commencement, the first in-person ceremony held in three years. Berklee President Erica Muhl presented honorary doctorates to Beatles icon Ringo Starr, R&B luminary and Berklee alumna Lalah Hathaway '90, decorated composer and producer James Newton Howard, and legendary bass player Chuck Rainey.
The annual commencement concert took place the previous evening at Agganis and featured many of Berklee's most talented graduates paying tribute to the honorees by performing their music, including Hathaway's Grammy-winning songs Something and Angel, Howard's compositions from Pretty Woman and The Hunger Games franchise, and a panoply of hits from Aretha Franklin, the Jackson 5, and Quincy Jones to reflect Rainey's contributions to music. During the concert, Hathaway took to the stage to deliver a stirring tribute to her late father, Donny Hathaway, with A Song for You, backed by a band of Berklee student musicians.
Starr delivered a surprise address in a prerecorded statement to the class of 2022. The rock legend will visit Berklee to receive his honorary degree in person this summer.
If I could wish anything for you, it would be that the passion and love that you have for making music continues to guide you through wherever your career takes you next, said Starr. It's great when success happens, and Berklee students have seen a lot of it but it's important to remember that's not what this is all about. For each of us, it started with a dream to play music. May your dream keep unfolding for you, as it has for me.
Hathaway, a genre-defying singer-songwriter and five-time Grammy Award-winner, was recognized for her vocal range, emotional live performances and recordings, and empowering songwriting. In her address, Hathaway touched on her formative experience as a Berklee student, when she recorded her debut album. She talked about the shared language and connection in the Berklee community, and how she played with some of the greatest musicians ever still to this day. There are people out there in the halls at Berklee that I still think about, that electrify me, and push me toward greatness.
Lalah Hathaway performs A Song for You at the commencement concert.
Image by Kelly Davidson
Reflecting upon her time at the college, Hathaway thanked Maggie Scott, professor of voice, who encouraged her to make her disco album in Los Angeles and then return to Boston to make her jazz album. I'm glad she told me that, said Hathaway. In that moment I didn't know that I could do whatever I wanted to do. I had a vision for who I was as an artist, as a musician, when I came here, and I'm glad that I wasn't fully in charge of that because I might have pigeonholed myself. So don't do that to yourselves. That's important for you to remember. You can do whatever you want to do. As soon as you realize what your path is and you are clearly going on that path, you're the greatest.
On the dynamics of being an artist, Hathaway said, You've done something really great. You have made the choice to share your God-given thoughts and your dreams and your ruminations and your nightmares and your talent. All of that goes into your music. All of that plays into your art. You've taken the next step and a leap of faith toward becoming an alchemist, a storyteller, a game changer, a healer. I hope that you have made an agreement with yourself to be honest and truthful with your art. Do not look to the music industry to tell you that you're an artist.
Be uncompromising about finding your life's work, but be open to it being something you can't imagine for yourself now.
- James Newton Howard
Howard, an acclaimed film composer, conductor, songwriter, and record producer, was celebrated for his original scores for such foundational movies as Pretty in Pink, The Fugitive, and The Sixth Sense across a storied career that has included nine Oscar nominations, an Emmy, and a Grammy. President Muhl acknowledged Howard's mark on popular music through collaborations with cultural icons Elton John, Diana Ross, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, among many others, as well as his masterful arrangements brought to life by the Pacific Symphony and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
I don't believe we make our own luck, but I do believe we need to be available, willing, and capable of responding when the opportunity knocks, said Howard. Don't settle for mediocre. You will become what you practice most, so practice excellence, practice creativity, and remember the creative muscle is a muscle that needs to be exercised and strengthened. He closed his speech by offering the graduating class the following advice: Be uncompromising about finding your life's work, but be open to it being something you can't imagine for yourself now.
Next time it rains, be still and listen to it there's a bass line in there.
- Chuck Rainey
One of the most ubiquitous and influential bass players in American music, Chuck Rainey earned honors from Berklee for advancing intricate techniques still employed by bassists today. President Muhl related how Rainey quickly became a coveted fixture of major recording studios and touring acts of the '60s and
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 Honors Ringo Starr, Lalah Hathaway, James Newton Howard, and Chuck Rainey at Commencement The entertainment legends received honorary doctorates for their immeasurable impact on music, film and television, and popular culture.
