Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Student Spotlight: Andrea Recalde

05/12/2023

Student Spotlight: Andrea Recalde The vocalist from Quito, Ecuador, talks about songwriting across language barriers, taking inspiration from family, and rediscovering dad-rock.

By

Editorial Staff

December 4, 2023

Andrea Recalde

Image by Raisa Akhtar

What's it like to study at Berklee? Our Student Spotlight series asks current students all about their Berklee experience-what they're learning in class, what kinds of projects they're involved in onstage or behind the scenes, how they recharge, and of course, what they're listening to. This week, meet vocalist Andrea Recalde, a fifth-semester songwriting and music business/management double-major from Quito, Ecuador, who performs under the artist name DREA.

Tell us about your path to Berklee. What made you decide to come here?I didnt plan on attending Berklee initially. In high school, I hesitated to pursue music due to self-doubt and my brothers success in the industry. One day, I saw a Berklee ad on Instagram, and my phone mysteriously led me to the application. Wearing a Berklee shirt at that moment, I took it as a sign and applied. I believe everything happens for a reason, and Im glad I found my passion for music.

Whats been your favorite class so far, and what has it taught you?My favorite class is conducting with Professor Kristo Kondak i. Conducting connects on an intimate level, and Professor Kondak is teaching style resonates with me. He uses visuals and real-life applications, making learning enjoyable. Conducting is about emotion, body placement, and connecting with peoples energy to shape music. Its been my favorite class this semester.

Whats a project youve worked on since coming to Berklee that youve been especially excited about?One of my favorite Berklee projects was performing an original song in Spanish that I cowrote with a friend/roommate. We performed it at an open mic, and the collaboration, despite the language barrier, was a memorable experience.

Andrea Recalde performs her original song, mientras tu te vas:

How do you typically recharge or find new ideas outside of class?To recharge and find new ideas, I take walks, long showers, or naps. Sleep is essential for a clear mind. I also meditate, go on walks, read books, and journal to clear my thoughts and spark new ideas. Finding what works best for you is crucial for well-being.

When you think towards your own future, who inspires you most?My biggest inspiration is my brother, who has succeeded in the music industry. Hes taught me about the industry, the value of self-worth, and the power of connections. Collaborating with him has been a privilege, and I aspire to share my music and work with diverse artists like he does.

Whats one piece of advice youd give to your high school self?Advice to my high school self: High school is just a small part of life. Be true to yourself, never change for others, and trust that everything happens for a reason. Relax and let the universe guide your path.

Andrea's Top Five Songs Right NowWe asked Andrea to list her five favorite songs of the moment. Heres what she said:

1. Strawberry Bubblegum, Justin TimberlakeThis track is from one of my favorite albums of all time, and I love the way it switches in the middle, and it seems like its a completely different song, but its not. It's honestly just such a vibe all throughout, and it always makes me want to dance.

2. Cough Syrup, Young the GiantThis song just makes me feel good when listening to it, and it's really fun to listen to on bike rides, which I take every day so its definitely in my top favorites right now.

3. Carolina, Sebastian LlosaI met this artist at a showcase for Warner Music Latino, and I fell in love ever since. His songwriting is amazing, and I love the way his melodies mesh with his lyrics. I also just want to keep promoting him because he is a Latin artist who deserves to be much bigger than he currently is.

4. How You Remind Me, NickelbackI just started listening to this song again, and it's just a classic dad-rock vibe. I enjoy listening to it from time to time and it really is a kind of song that you listen to when you're in a specific mood.

5. The Bird & the Rifle, Lori McKennaI was shown this song by one of my songwriting teachers; she used it to describe third person narratives while telling a specific story, and I love the imagery that is shown.

Related Categories

News

Student Spotlight

Most Popular

15 of the Best Cover Songs (and Why They Work) From Fast Car to Ring of Fire, there's no formula to making a successful cover song. But the best covers answer two important questions.

Latest

Joel Ross

Image courtesy of the artist

Berklee Presents 2024 Spring Signature Series The series will celebrate the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, as well as pay tribute to the music of Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, and Michael Jackson.

Master Tour and the Berklee Popular Music Institute (BPMI) have announced a partnership in which students will be granted access to the platform to manage events and concerts on campus

Berklee and Master Tour Announce Partnership Master Tour will equip up-and-coming tour professionals from the Berklee Popular Music Institute with its state-of-the-art tools.

Boston Conservatory at Berklee Announces Center Stage Performances for Spring 2024 The four spring performances will highlight student talent in dance, music, and theater.

Read All

Subscribe The latest sounds, stories, and ideas, sent to your inbox weekly.
LINK: https://www.berklee.edu/berklee-now/news/student-spotlight-andrea-reca...
See more stories from berklee

North America Stories

23/06/2026

Nagravision Launches Nagra Venturi Security Offering

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

ITN Expands Programmatic Local TV Platform

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Warner Bros. Discovery Taps AWS for New AI-Powered Ad Tech

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Study: Younger Viewers More Distracted But More Receptive to Ads

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Chilevisin, ClaroVTR Tap Pixop for 4K FIFA World Cup Feed

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Imagine Communications Names Greg Garmon as Senior Vice P...

Multifaceted Growth Executive Brings 20+ Years of Experience Leading Organizations Across Tech and M&E Imagine Communications today announced the appointment ...

23/06/2026

Visual Productions Unveils RdmRelay2 Four-channel Relay Control at InfoComm 2026

Visual Productions Unveils RdmRelay2 Four-channel Relay Control at InfoComm 2026 Brie Clayton June 22, 2026 0 Comments New Relay Solution Combines DMX, ...

23/06/2026

SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible, Opening Standards Library to the Global Media Technology Community

SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible, Opening Standards Library to the Gl...

23/06/2026

June 22, 2026

Newly identified molecule strengthens the eye's response to damage in retinal disease Scripps Research discovery finds that restoring the naturally occurrin...

22/06/2026

Behind the Mic: SportsCenters Lisa Cohn to Retire This June From ESPN as Longest-Tenured Anchor

Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...

22/06/2026

Cosm Appoints David Ho as Chief Legal Officer

Cosm has announced the appointment of David Ho as Chief Legal Officer, a newly created executive role reporting to President and CEO Jeb Terry. Ho will oversee ...

22/06/2026

Warner Bros. Discovery and AWS Announce AI-Powered Advertising Technology Platform

Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced the developm...

22/06/2026

Daktronics Completes Audio Control System Upgrade at Petco Park for San Diego Padres

Daktronics has completed an audio control system upgrade at Petco Park in San Di...

22/06/2026

Accelerate Media Names John Willi President, Launches Accelerate Sports Network

Accelerate Media has named John Willi as President and announced the launch of the Accelerate Sports Network (ASN), a prep sports media and streaming platform c...

22/06/2026

AWSN to Air 3XBA Womens Basketball Tournament Live June 26-27

All Women's Sports Network (AWSN) and 3XBA (3 3 Basketball Association) have announced live television coverage of the annual 3XBA tournament on Friday, Jun...

22/06/2026

OWL AI Appoints Jay Prasad as Chief Executive Officer

OWL AI has announced the appointment of Jay Prasad as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors. Prasad succeeds Josh Gwyther, who has served...

22/06/2026

CP Communications Provides RF Support for Inside the NBA at 2026 NBA Finals

CP Communications delivered RF video and audio support for TNT's Inside the NBA at the 2026 NBA Finals, providing main show coverage in San Antonio and ea...

22/06/2026

Polymarket and GRID Partner to Integrate Esports Data and Streaming into Trading Platform

Polymarket has announced a partnership with GRID, an official esports data platf...

22/06/2026

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Metinteractive's Rachel Mele, Ken Cyr on Building Technology Backbones for Sports Venues

As sports venues continue to evolve into more video-centric, fan-engagement-driv...

22/06/2026

SVG All-Stars: Corbin Perkins, Chief Engineer, Victory+

As the regional sports production scene shifts toward streaming, this Texan helps lead the engineering behind Victory+'s growing live platform...

22/06/2026

Meet the 2026 Sundance Institute Documentary Edit Intensive Fellows

By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs the memories of your elders [are] a scaffolding for you to build your identity on - and t...

22/06/2026

Xumo Expands Contextual Targeting Capabilities Through Gracenote and IRIS.TV Integrations

Expanded integrations give advertisers access to distinct contextual signals acr...

22/06/2026

Greg Garmon Joins Imagine as Senior VP, Americas Video Sales

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/06/2026

Kaleidescape Breaks the 8K and 4:4:4 Barriers

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/06/2026

Xilica introduces Dynamic Voice Lift in new Designer

Xilica today announced the release of Dynamic Voice Lift, a new feature in Xilica Designer v4.12 that brings adaptive speech reinforcement to large meeting spac...

22/06/2026

NVIDIA Brings Trusted, 24/7 AI Agents to Telecom Operations

Telecom operators have seen remarkable returns from using generative AI to automate network management, customer care and back-office operations. Most of that i...

22/06/2026

Eco Wave Power Turns Waves Into Watts With NVIDIA AI Infrastructure and Digital Twins

The next era of AI will not be defined by compute alone. Its growth will be dete...

22/06/2026

NVIDIA Vera CPU Opens the Way for Agentic Scientific AI at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Mission, Vision and Veritas - new Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) supercom...

22/06/2026

From Materials Simulation to Experimental Astronomy, New NVIDIA AI Software Unlocks Scientific Discoveries

At the ISC conference running in Hamburg this week, NVIDIA is introducing new so...

22/06/2026

NAIRR Science Program Reshapes Scientific Research, Powered by NVIDIA AI Infrastructure

For the past two years, the U.S. National Science Foundation's National Arti...

22/06/2026

At ISC, JUPITER Shows What Exascale Science Looks Like

JUPITER, Europe's first exascale supercomputer at Germany's Forschungszentrum J lich, runs on NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips and NVIDIA Quantum-X800 Inf...

21/06/2026

FIFAs Oscar Sanchez on World Cup Effort: Were Feeling Good and Where We Want to Be

To call the 2026 FIFA World Cup a big undertaking would be a big understatement....

21/06/2026

Hotter Than a Hot Tub: The 45C Breakthrough to Cool AI's Biggest Machines

Hot tubs sit at about 38 to 40 degrees Celsius, warm enough that most people can only soak for about 15 minutes. NVIDIA's newest AI servers can run their co...

20/06/2026

What's Next for Apogee? Start Here.

What exactly is Apogee Control V3? Control V3 is a new mixer application that controls Apogee interfaces. The new hit feature is that V3 finally allows for...

19/06/2026

NBC Sports U.S. Open Coverage Fires Up 92 Cameras, Bunker cams

Split compound eases operational challenges at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club...

19/06/2026

ESPN's Men's College World Series Production Adds Onsite Studio, POVORA CapCams, Expanded Drone Coverage for Finale in Omaha

North Carolina, Oklahoma meet in the best-of-three Finals as ESPN leans into spe...

19/06/2026

Eurovision secures top four position as content distributor rankings hold steady in Poland

Data from May shows seasonal outdoor trends triggers lower viewing Warsaw, Pola...

19/06/2026

Bitfocus Buttons wins another top industry award

Buttons is best control system in the rAVe Best of Infocomm Awards 2026...

19/06/2026

Mavis Studio Makes iPad Production More Powerful

Mavis Studio Makes iPad Production More Powerful Brie Clayton June 19, 2026 0 Comments InfoComm update brings new NDI Preview, PTZ control, USB audio ...

19/06/2026

Immersive Studio Metaverse Stage Tackles Post with Blackmagic Design

Immersive Studio Metaverse Stage Tackles Post with Blackmagic Design Brie Clayton June 19, 2026 0 Comments New narrative projects rely on DaVinci Reso...

19/06/2026

How to Run the Original 1993 After Effects

How to Run the Original 1993 After Effects Graham Quince June 19, 2026 0 Comments How to the original After Effects v1 in an emulator, and you don'...

19/06/2026

IBC Show to Increase Focus on Networking, Startups

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

19/06/2026

Irdeto Taps Axel Gallant as CEO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

19/06/2026

SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible - Opening St...

SMPTE , the home of media professionals, technologists and engineers, has announced that its entire Standards catalog is now freely available to the global medi...

19/06/2026

nsign and BrightSign partner to expand deployment options...

nsign, the digital signage SaaS platform built around its core principle of Simplify Complexity, has announced a partnership with BrightSign , expanding the dep...

19/06/2026

Visual Productions Unveils RdmRelay2 Four-channel Relay...

Visual Productions announces the availability of its new RdmRelay2 at InfoComm 2026 (ACT Entertainment, Booth N6813). A networked, four-channel DMX relay, it is...

19/06/2026

Adobe Unveils Major Expansion of Creative Agent Across Firefly and Creative Cloud Apps Including Photoshop and Premiere

Adobe Unveils Major Expansion of Creative Agent Across Firefly and Creative Clou...

19/06/2026

Immersive Studio Metaverse Stage Innovates Storytelling with URSA Cine Immersive

Immersive Studio Metaverse Stage Innovates Storytelling with URSA Cine Immersive Brie Clayton June 18, 2026 0 Comments Two new narrative short films c...

19/06/2026

June 18, 2026

Lab studies explain how new cancer drug works as it enters patient testing Immunologists at Scripps Research show how a new, experimental drug revives immune ce...

18/06/2026

Ratings Roundup: Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals Is Most Watched Since Jordan Bulls Era; FIFA World Cup Opens Big

Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...