
Reframing Conservatory Education Through Africana Studies As Berklee's Africana Studies Division grows, so do learning and mentorship opportunities for Boston Conservatory at Berklee students.
By
Sarah Godcher Murphy
September 11, 2024
Africana studies student Caden Burston (BM 25, violin) performed works by Black composers at Symphony Hall in February 2024.
Liz Friar
Studying technique helps performing arts students answer the how questions: how to play staccato bowing on the violin, for instance, or land a grand jet . But it is context-historical, social, cultural, and personal-that helps them answer the why.
Berklee's Africana Studies Division provides Boston Conservatory students with essential context for the study of Black creative expression in dance, music, and theater. This learning process sheds light on systemic inequities that have shaped the performing arts landscape as it exists today, and it offers a platform on which to build a more inclusive future.
We really are focused on providing the social and cultural contexts of the art forms for which students are training, says Dr. Mike Mason, chair of the Africana Studies Department. We want to provide those contexts for students so that it's part of their overall education in terms of not just learning the technical side of things but also, where did this come from? And what/who were some of the influences?
Mason's department is housed within Berklee's larger Africana Studies Division, which offers courses rooted in the African diaspora-including a minor in Africana Studies-to both Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Berklee College of Music students. In the spring 2025 semester, the division will add its first-ever course at Berklee Online, Black Creative Expression: Introduction to Africana Studies. The division also oversees the Africana Studies Center, which serves students in myriad ways: providing mentorship, encouraging culturally responsible scholarship, and supporting special event programming for all students.
Since Mason was appointed as the inaugural chair of Africana Studies in 2023, the department has been expanding its curricular offerings with Boston Conservatory students in mind. In the 2023-2024 academic year, for instance, it partnered with the Conservatory to design a new course on African American classical composers. And now this fall, the department is launching its biggest endeavor to date: a bachelor's degree in Black music and culture available to all Berklee College of Music undergraduates. Although the major is for students at the College, it's still great news for Boston Conservatory students, who are now able to enroll in Africana courses-and earn credit towards an Africana Studies minor, as well as fulfill some of their liberal arts and sciences degree requirements.
That was a huge plus for me, knowing that I could study Black traditions here while I'm also obtaining my violin performance degree. I feel like that's an opportunity that students don't have at other conservatories.
-Caden Burston
Interpreting a work of art requires an understanding of the context in which it was made, Mason says, pointing to choreographer Alvin Ailey as one example. To perform Ailey's choreography in a meaningful way, dancers should know where he came from-why his upbringing in the segregated South, paired with his nuanced perception of Black popular dance, led to the creation of his own company, the now-legendary Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. With this context, students can recognize that forming the first Black repertory dance company in 1958 was more than a personal artistic achievement-it was a triumph of the civil rights movement.
The impact of the Africana Studies Division can be felt by all Boston Conservatory students, not simply those who choose to declare the minor. For music students in particular, it has played a role in reshaping core music history curriculum and broadening repertoire selection for ensembles. Since 2022, all Music Division students have taken a new required course, Music in Context, which places Western classical music within the broader framework of global traditions from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Caden Burston (BM 25, violin) began their studies at Boston Conservatory before the expansion of the music history curriculum. In the years since, they've seen a change in the repertoire that fellow students are choosing to perform in recitals. I've noticed a cultural difference at BoCo, ever since the extra [music history] semester was added. More people are playing works by composers that are Black, and works by Latino composers, Burston says. All of a sudden, I saw so many recital posters with composers that I thought nobody else knew about.
In major ensembles as well, Burston has seen more inclusive repertoire selection, along with greater care given to providing personal and historical background about Black composers whose works were largely overlooked in their lifetime. Our conductors were actually talking about How do we play this music with the right knowledge to be able to express it correctly?'-in the same way that they would talk about playing Beethoven's sixth before rehearsing it, Burston says. I feel like all of the composers and all of the pieces are receiving equal attention. And in turn, the programs were more thoughtful and more historically put together.
After attending a majority-Black performing arts high school in Columbus, Ohio ( It's called Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School, if you want to shout them out, Burston says), they chose to attend Boston Conservatory, in large part, because of the prominence of the Africana Studies Division. That was a huge plus for me, knowing that I could study Black traditions here while I'm also obtaining my vi
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
20/11/2025
MLB Media-Rights Shakeup: NBC's New Three-Year Deal Covers Sunday Night Bas...
20/11/2025
MLB Media-Rights Shakeup: New Deal Will Bring 30 National Games to ESPN's Li...
20/11/2025
MLB Media-Rights Shakeup: Netflix Lands Opening Night, Home Run Derby, Field of ...
20/11/2025
MLB Media-Rights Shakeup Overview: ESPN, NBCU, Netflix Ink Three-Year DealsESPN gets new 30-game package, MLB.TV; NBC extends Sunday nights; Netflix adds tentpo...
20/11/2025
SVG Students To Watch: Henry Thuss, Indiana UniversityThe Southern California product has his goals set on the front benchBy Brandon Costa, Director of Digital ...
20/11/2025
Done+Dusted's Guy Carrington on Creating the Spectacular League of Legends W...
20/11/2025
FIA Extreme H World Cup Host Broadcaster Aurora Goes Inside the Production of th...
20/11/2025
Platinum White Paper: Amagi Utilizes Cloud Production for Sports Events - Multi-...
20/11/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Marc Herklotz, Steady Hand Behind the Sce...
20/11/2025
NFL Deep Dive: How 32 Cameras at Each Stadium Drive Virtual Measurement, Boundar...
20/11/2025
Charlie Shackleton attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Zodiac K...
20/11/2025
Your playlists are personal. They're the soundtracks to your road trips, your quiet mornings, and your biggest celebrations; collections of memories and dis...
20/11/2025
Spotify, uzun s redir zerine al t T rk m zik k lt r n n ikon haline gelmi ...
20/11/2025
For the first time, Spotify has teamed up with The Hollywood Reporter to cohost ...
20/11/2025
This year's ARIA Awards marked a turning point for Australian music, and Spotify was right at the heart of it. For the first time in the awards' nearly ...
20/11/2025
L3Harris has achieved NSA Cybersecurity Directorate certification for its KSV-650 space hub end cryptographic unit, ensuring secure, adaptable communications fo...
20/11/2025
L3Harris is strengthening its long-term partnership with Poland through the opening of a new facility in Warsaw to serve as a central business hub for regional ...
20/11/2025
15 March 2012
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Cinegy and Vericom are pleased to announce the recent deployment of Cinegy Archive for production and as...
20/11/2025
6 September 2012
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
FIC Turkey supplies media content to Pay TV under Fox TV Channel brands in Turkey.
At the start of s...
20/11/2025
25 June 2014
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Last month VIVA finalized its Cinegy installation in order to produce and broadcast the World Cup Brazil ...
20/11/2025
1 October 2014
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
With 5 locations spread out around Baden-W rttemberg, Schw bisch Media required a scalable end to end s...
20/11/2025
27 April 2015
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Cinegy, which develops and produces media asset management products that are used in flagship production...
20/11/2025
12 August 2015
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 26 October 2015 - Cinegy, which develops and produces software technology for digital ...
20/11/2025
5 November 2015
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 3 November 2015 - Cinegy, which develops and produces software technology for digital ...
20/11/2025
12 February 2016
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 9 February 2016 - Cinegy, which develops and produces software technology for digital...
20/11/2025
22 June 2016
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 21 June 2016 - Cinegy today announced that ABS BROADCAST, one of the largest independentl...
20/11/2025
10 January 2017
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Find us on page 12 of the Program Guide 2016
Tags
NewBay Media Awards , Program Guide 2016 , broadc...
20/11/2025
15 March 2017
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 15 March 2017 - Cinegy today announced that Thailand's Next Step direct-to-home Free...
20/11/2025
12 December 2017
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 13 December 2017 - Cinegy today announced that it is making its Cinegy Air Cloud Pack...
20/11/2025
25 June 2018
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich 25th June 2018 - Cinegy today announced that Canada-based Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) has implemen...
20/11/2025
27 May 2019
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
The best quality live video from the worst networks - Haivision
Although DVB and the World Wide Web are...
20/11/2025
24 November 2020
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
ATV Expand and Increase their Playout and Editing Capabilities using Cinegy Software
Munich, Germany...
20/11/2025
1 September 2021
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st September 2021:
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for di...
20/11/2025
20 September 2021
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
ElectronicVerve continues a strong history of supporting Cinegy customers in India
Munich, Germany,...
20/11/2025
1 November 2022
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 01 November 2022: Cinegy, a premier provider of software technology for digital video...
20/11/2025
31 October 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Britt Broadcast at TBC...
20/11/2025
CINCINNATI Oklahoma Community Television (OCT) has selected GatesAir and Triveni Digital as key technology partners in an ATSC 3.0 deployment that establishes a...
20/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a wide-ranging inquiry into the relations between broadcast networks and their affiliates that could...
20/11/2025
NEW YORK Ad spend in the creator economy has more than doubled since 2021 from $13.9B to $29.5B in 2024 and that amount is projected to reach $37 billion in 202...
20/11/2025
Graduate Spotlight: Krysta Mirsik DePuy The educator from Hackettstown, New Jersey, shares how it took her 11 years to find the right graduate program for her...
20/11/2025
LONDON The winners of the Rise Awards 2025, which recognize women and companies whose achievements have stood out in the media technology industry, have been an...
20/11/2025
SANTA MONICA & NEW YORK Lionsgate's Worldwide Television Distribution Group and Debmar-Mercury have launched MovieSphere Gold in more than 30 million homes....
20/11/2025
ALAMEDA, Calif. Clear-Com has introduced its four-channel HelixNet beltpack, a next-generation advancement of its widely used two-channel model, and anticipates...
20/11/2025
NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J. Streaming technology and services provider Kiswe has launched Kiswe Core, a next-generation cloud-based platform designed to simplify the s...
20/11/2025
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Dolby Laboratories has signed on as an official signature partner of the Bay Area Host Committee (BAHC) for the 2026 Super Bowl and the we...
20/11/2025
STUTTGART, Germany 3 Screen Solutions (3SS) has announced that the Canadian multiservice operator Telus has launched its Telus TV+ entertainment platform on Sam...
20/11/2025
Major League Baseball has announced deals with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix covering 2026-2028 that make ESPN the exclusive distributor for MLB.TV, put regula...
20/11/2025
Berklee Presents Holiday Extravaganza: Duke Ellingtons The Nutcracker Suite and ...
20/11/2025
Dubai, United Arab Emirates [November 20, 2025] Space42 (ADX: SPACE42), the ...