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Ron Savage, Chair
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"To prepare for the current music scene, where boundaries are constantly being crossed and new music created, it is important that we expose our students to as many different musical perspectives as possible. That's why the Ensemble Department is so stylistically diverse."
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Sean K. Skeete, Assistant Chair
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"I've been mentoring with City Music since I started teaching here, five years ago. It really just lines up with my life philosophy, which is engaging and inspiring the next generation. Whether or not I'm doing it at Berklee I'm doing it somewhere, because it's part of the way I was raised. I was one of those City Music students at one point, involved in the five-week program. Now I go back and help out the students that are coming behind me and help the program to expand and grow."
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Darren Barrett, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"My time at Berklee was extremely nurturing. The atmosphere was so inspiring, everyone working so hard to really be able to play at the highest level possible. Antonio Hart and I were roommates for a period, and did a lot of playing together, and grew together. In 1988, my curiosity was piqued by electronic music, programming, and synthesis. I dedicated time learning how to program drum machines and synthesizers, and started learning how to produce popular music."
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Kevin Barry, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"I teach a contemporary styles ensembles. Over the course of the semester, we play everything from modern pop to straight-ahead jazz and everything in between. In ensemble playing, you need to be generous musically. You need to listen to the other people. You have to play like a team. If you're not playing as much for the other people in the group as for yourself, that's a problem. You have to have musical humility, to think about the song first. The song is the focus, not the guitar solo."
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Walter Beasley, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"I think students come to Berklee for many of the same reasons. They find role models they can identify with. Our job is to provide the fundamental training for young musicians to succeed in the world they live in."
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Lin Biviano, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"The Urban Outreach Ensemble—cosponsored by the Community Affairs Office and the Ensemble Department—is a very rewarding part of my teaching at Berklee. It's an educational jazz orchestra that I've led for the past 12 years. Its primary purpose is to travel and present live jazz to inner city schools. We've played several times at Symphony Hall and other venues. Many of the students who have heard us end up joining Berklee's summer program and even getting four-year scholarships to study at Berklee."
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Fernando Brandao, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"The most important thing I want for my students is musicality in playing whatever they want to play: expression with rhythm, with pulse, and with movement. To make a beautiful sound, it doesn't need to be one kind of sound, but it does need to be expressive. I also want them to be aware of the culture, to be aware of what they're playing, and feel confidence in it. I try to make students aware—without being self-conscious—of how their body works with the instrument when they're performing."
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"Music lifts me up. It is emotionally based. It helps people be healthy in their emotional well-being. As a player, it's how I express everything that I'm feeling. It is the voice that I speak from. I know how to create textures and colors with it."
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Jerry Cecco, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"I constantly tell students to improve their reading skills because that’s a big thing in the music business. A lot of my performances are reading music. I do others, too, where I don’t read, where I play memorized stuff, but the big things I do are reading. And I just try to encourage the students."
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Dennis Cecere, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"I teach the ensemble that plays for the Song Demo Production class. Their goal for the semester is to sound like a band that's played together their whole life, from the first note to the last, the first time through. I don't allow them to see any of the music until they walk into the studio. I set it up like this: If you're going to become a studio musician, this is how it's going to happen, and this is how you're going to have to deal with it."
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