Student Helps Pops and Symphony Hall Guests Take the Stage

Every summer Berklee students pursue some of the coolest jobs in the music and performing arts industries. In our series Summer Stints we take a quick look at them.

Name: Clara Maurer

Age: 21

Hometown: Newport, Rhode Island Job: Internship with the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall

When the Boston Pops take the stage at Symphony Hall, just out of view is seventh-semester music business/management student Clara Maurer, making sure that the evening is running smoothly.

Since March, shes been working as an artist assistant-doing everything from fulfilling visiting artists riders to setting props and cueing entrances-and in Symphony Halls office, reviewing contracts and riders, writing out artist itineraries, and performing managerial tasks to prepare for the six-week Spring Pops season as well as the Fourth of July Spectacular at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade. She found out about the internship on the Berklee Career Manager.

Its definitely easier said than done, so it was cool to learn from the masters.

-Clara Maurer

A good part of her job entails reviewing the paperwork that comes with working with major artists, and she came to it well-prepared thanks to her Concerts and Touring class with Jeff Dorenfeld. I actually knew what I was looking for in a contract, what a good deal looked like, and how to talk about it with some level of confidence.

Her stage crew job at Berklee also helped her with stage management tasks at Symphony Hall as she worked with the Pops production team as well as visiting stage managers, Emmy Award-winning sound designers, and artists. Its important to understand from each performer as soon as possible how involved they needed me to be since most productions would only travel through Symphony Hall for a 48- to 72-hour period, she said. In moments of downtime, she would ask them about their career trajectories, how they got to where they are, and what they are doing next.

Of course, preparing a venue like Symphony Hall has its own challenges. Amplifying instruments in such an acoustically sensitive space was its own art. Its definitely easier said than done so it was cool to learn from the masters.

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