Berklee City Music Students Receive Scholarships, Awards at Concert

Berklee City Music Students Receive Scholarships, Awards at Concert This year, 17 students received scholarships, housing awards, and aid to attend Berklee College of Music.

By

Tori Donahue

August 7, 2025

Krystal Prime Banfield (far left), Berklee vice president of Education Outreach and Social Entrepreneurship, celebrated this years City Music scholarship recipients on stage at the Berklee Performance Center.

Omari Spears

Seventeen young musicians from Boston and beyond have been awarded scholarships and awards to attend Berklee.

The recipients are participants in Berklee City Music, a nonprofit program that delivers high-quality contemporary music education to youth from under-resourced communities at low or no cost. The program also includes the City Music Network, an association of 47 community organizations that serve more than 60,000 students in the US, Canada, and Latin America each year. City Music provides pre-college support to help students have a pathway to Berklee and provides advising support while they are enrolled.

This year, Berklee City Music funded 22 scholarships for entering students, worth approximately $400,000. Sixteen students were given four-year, full-tuition Berklee City Music and Berklee College of Music scholarships, with eight of those students also receiving City Music Housing scholarships. Additionally, one student was awarded a Berklee City Music partial-tuition scholarship ahead of the fall semester.

Berklee City Music celebrated the scholarship recipients in a ceremony and concert on August 5 at the Berklee Performance Center. The evening was hosted by Malaysian performer and lyricist Zamaera, who is rewriting the narrative of being a female rapper in Southeast Asia. An independent artist and founder of Mean Malay Entertainment, she released an acclaimed EP, Z vs Z, and created Queendomfest, Malaysia's first all-female music festival, backed by the Malaysian Ministry of Communications and Digital.

The scholarship presentation and concert marked the end of Berklees Aspire: Five-Week Music Performance Intensive, where dozens of students attended the program on Berklee City Music Summer Scholarships.

2025 Scholarship Recipients from Berklee City Music:

Alondra Azcona, Apex, North Carolina

Esteban Bardales, Lima, Peru

Nathaneal Barlow, Cheltenham, Pennsylvania

Justice Brooks, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Patrick Cassidy, Phoenix, Arizona

Christopher Jackson, Franklin, Tennessee

Jacob Jones, Jr., New Orleans, Louisiana

Gabriel Martin, Lynn, Massachusetts

Melanie Moreno, Quito, Ecuador

Jedidiah Park, New York, New York

Elisha Pritchard, Dorchester, Massachusetts

Davi Rangel, Everett, Massachusetts

Sebastien Swensen, Phoenix, Arizona

Pasley Thompson, Memphis, Tennessee

Nigel Valle, Metairie, Louisiana

Brian Washington, Foxborough, Massachusetts

Mecca Williams, Dorchester, Massachusetts

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Krystal Prime Banfield (far left), Berklee vice president of Education Outreach and Social Entrepreneurship, celebrated this years City Music scholarship recipients on stage at the Berklee Performance Center.

Omari Spears

Berklee City Music Students Receive Scholarships, Awards at Concert This year, 17 students received scholarships, housing awards, and aid to attend Berklee College of Music.

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