Academic Leadership from Boston, Valencia Return for Abu Dhabi Educators Symposium Viktorija Pilatovic and Enrique Gonzalez M ller are among faculty who will be participating in the two-day intensive for the second straight year.
By
Daniel Pesquera
October 8, 2024
Academic leaders from across the global campuses of Berklee will once again connect with arts educators throughout the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region at the second annual Berklee Abu Dhabi Creative Arts Educators' Symposium. The two-day intensive, which takes place October 10 and 11 at the Berklee Abu Dhabi Center, engages local educators on a wide range of subject matters, from teaching popular music to incorporating new technologies such as AI to reigniting passion and inspiring creativity in the classroom.
Session facilitators include Dr. Krystal Banfield, vice president of Education Outreach and Social Entrepreneurship; Tonya Butler, chair of the Music Business/Management Department; Misael Martinez, assistant vice president of social entrepreneurship and creative youth development; Lucas Mart n, assistant professor at Berklee Valencia; Kenrick John, director of the Berklee City Music Preparatory Academy; and Marek Dykta, senior assistant director of admissions. (Berklee will hold auditions and interviews in Abu Dhabi for undergraduate applicants this December.)
Also returning are Viktorija Pilatovic, assistant professor at Berklee Valencia, and Enrique Gonzalez M ller, an associate professor of music production and engineering who also founded the Pedagogy Arts Collective. We caught up with them ahead of the event to explore what they took away from the last symposium and what they hope to contribute this time.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What did you learn at the last symposium that made an impression on you?Viktorija Pilatovic: The educators that I met shared a genuine desire to help students succeed and make our lessons more engaging and meaningful. After the symposium sessions [last year], many of the teachers said to me, I want to go to school and learn from you! They were so inspired to pursue further development and education, and it was really a positive takeaway for me.
Enrique Gonzalez M ller: In many ways the symposium felt very much in line with the work I have done for years at Berklee, including founding and running the Pedagogy Arts Collective and the Global Open Pedagogy Arts Collective. Going into the symposium, I thought I'd encounter educators similar to those I've engaged with in other settings. The similarities are that educators in Abu Dhabi are deeply, emotionally invested in what they are doing. I felt a very uniform sense of pride for their job and a desire to have a positive impact on their students and their community. However, many of the educators we met also taught a vast gamut of ages, from college students to four-year-olds. The challenge became: How do you teach students to tap into the potential for creativity they all possess, while making those concepts applicable across a very wide range of ages?
Viktorija Pilatovic leads a group exercise at the 2023 Berklee Abu Dhabi Creative Arts Educators Symposium.
Berklee Abu Dhabi
Viktorija, youll be talking about actively listening and analyzing music, as well as creative techniques for music making. What aspects of the ways we engage with music do you feel translate across cultures?VP: For active listening and analyzing, I wanted to do a session that inspires teachers to look at music layer by layer and show their students the many aspects they can listen for. The harmony, the rhythm, how the melody moves, the arrangement, and the mood are all part of the international language of music. Regardless of how these nuances change, music speaks to something fundamental in all of us. For creativity in music making, we will play a game where you would go into the hallway, for example, and grab an object that is not a musical instrument. You bang it or you tap it, and maybe it inspires a song in you or a melody. I wanted to do something very nonconventional to inspire them to try it with their students.
Enrique, youll be working with educators to help rediscover their passion for the arts as a way to inspire fresh lesson ideas. Can you talk about why helping educators reconnect with their love for the arts is an area of focus for you?EGM: What I find is that experts understandably often forget how it felt to be a beginner. It's important for experts to viscerally remember what it was that brought them to this craft, to start this complex yet rewarding adventure into the creative arts. Its essential that educators reconnect with the original reasons they chose music, rekindling the passion that first inspired them. When they do, they become more empathetic to their students journeys, which in turn allows them to teach more effectively and with greater purpose. Missing this opportunity means overlooking the key to fostering a deeper connection and more impactful learning experience.
Are there differences in the way you approach conversations with arts educators in the Abu Dhabi region versus how you would engage with similar communities in Boston, Valencia, or other places where you have taught and learned?EGM: I try to approach this in two distinctive ways. First, I do extensive homework to understand what makes the culture unique, with 90 percent of that effort focused on asking thoughtful questions and deeply listening to the community. This helps me become aware of realities that may differ greatly from my own and allows me to learn and better support them. Second, I aim to celebrate the things that unite us as humans-like the pursuit of health or creating space to observe, tangibly explore, and share the things we love. The challenge then is to develop ideas that honor those universal
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...
Academic Leadership from Boston, Valencia Return for Abu Dhabi Educators Symposium Viktorija Pilatovic and Enrique Gonzalez M ller are among faculty who will be participating in the two-day intensive for the second straight year.
