How Realistic Is the Berklee Audition Scene in CODA? Damien Bracken, dean of admissions, talks about Apples Oscar-nominated film and what it really takes to get into Berklee.
By
Alicia Taylor Bard
March 23, 2022
Emilia Jones in CODA
Image courtesy of Apple TV+
Berklee Nows Keyed In series features Berklee artists and experts making news and sounding off on the latest news and trends from the music world and beyond.
Damien Bracken, Berklees dean of admissions, has worked at Berklee for 36 years and has held his current title for the last 18. Hes traveled the world meeting with prospective students and has conducted more than 100,000 auditions and interviews, including those with Charlie Puth B.M '13, Big Thiefs Adrianne Lenker B.M. '12, and recent American Idol finalist Grace Kinstler.
With the Academy Awards less than a week away, all eyes are on Apples Oscar-nominated film CODA, which tells the story of a Massachusetts high school senior, Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), who is the only hearing member of a deaf family. She dreams of attending Berklee but must audition to gain admission and a scholarship.
CODA also features musical contributions from students and alumni. Bracken was consulted by the producers of the movie during filming. We caught up with him in between his travels.
In CODA theres a scene where the main character is auditioning at Berklee's campus. How realistic was that scene? The funniest part of the movie to me is the audition. It's hysterical. Our auditions are nothing like that! In fact, I designed the audition to be almost the opposite. We want the student in this really high-pressured kind of moment to feel relaxed and able to focus on their music as much as they possibly can. We do things like play along with the student. We improvise, and if the student is a songwriter, we'll say, let's write a song, right here and then. The whole idea is to remove all the intimidation factors and make it as warm and engaging as we can for the student. My challenge for staff is to have all of our applicants walk away with a smile on their face thinking about what a wonderful experience they just had. Rather than the Hollywood version where the person breaks into tears because they were so intimidated.
Damien Bracken, Berklees director of admissions
The pandemic forced us all to pivot in the way we conduct business. What has it been like conducting auditions during COVID? We were really lucky because we had, for a number of years, been doing online auditions and interviews. So we have some expertise already in how to deliver our audition and interview experience online, and we basically took that model and exploded it to fit our massive applicant pool. In 2020, 100 percent of our auditions and interviews were done online. We recruited the full class of 2021 online. We realized the benefits of doing things remotely. In a calendar year we will do 8,000 auditions and interviews, both online and in person.
Social media can turn people into stars literally overnight. Has its prevalence made it harder to attract talented students? Just the opposite. I see all these young musicians doing incredible things. It's not common for us, but on occasion I will reach out to someone on social media and just say, Hey, this is my gig, I'm really interested in what you are doing. If you want to talk to me, talk to me. I've even thought about making that part of the work that my staff does, researching the internet and reaching out to young people with promise.
Do you think CODA will have an impact on Berklee admissions and the way people view the school? I hope it will drive more people that previously didn't know about Berklee to investigate who we are. There are so many ways that you can engage with Berklee now: You can take pre-courses through massive open online courses (MOOCs), you can come to a summer program, or you can participate in a Berklee on the Road program. We travel all around the world and teach, and you can of course take a Berklee Online course.
What is your advice to anyone who dreams about attending Berklee? Be your authentic self. Do not be who you think we want you to be. You know who you are and your artistic self; double down on that and focus on your strengths. When we look at students for admission, we deliberately use a strength-based focus, so we're looking for what you will bring to this community and what your artistic contribution might be. So don't second guess yourself. Work hard on your craft. Do not wait to improve your artistic self. That is something to work on every day and for the rest of your life, not just while at Berklee.
Related Categories
Keyed In
News
Most Popular
Berklee students perform Billie Eilishs Happier than Ever.
Image by Kelly Davidson
Billie Eilish Concert Film Celebrates Whats Possible at Berklee The hour-long video features 50 Berklee students performing a career-spanning collection of 23 Eilish songs.
Latest
Emilia Jones and Eugenio Derbez in CODA
Image courtesy of Apple TV+
CODA Wins Big at the 2022 Oscars The Berklee-connected film won Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
Sergio de Miguel
Image courtesy of the artist
Berklee Student Named 2022 Yamaha Young Performing Artist Berklee senior Sergio de Miguel, a piano performance and film scoring major, is one of 13 artists selected for the honor this year.
Career Jam culminates in The Show, a pop music spectacle featuring Berklee top student singers, rappers, arrangers, instrumentalists, and more.
Image courtesy of the artists
Berklee Career Jam Showcases Student Talent for Top Industry Professionals A full day of immersive workshops with artists and executives from across the entertainment world culminates in a highly anticipated concert event.
Read All
Sub
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...
How Realistic Is the Berklee Audition Scene in CODA? Damien Bracken, dean of admissions, talks about Apples Oscar-nominated film and what it really takes to get into Berklee.
