Sinbad Presents Berklee City Music Scholarships
From the left: Sinbad and scholarship recipients Mahamma Germain and Christoff Glaude
Thirteen young musicians from underserved communities in Boston and across the U.S. were awarded four-year full-tuition scholarships to attend Berklee during an emotional presentation at the Berklee Performance Center on August 11. Each of the 13 winners had participated in the Berklee City Music Network.
Comedian Sinbad emceed the scholarship presentation, which came at the conclusion of the Berklee Five-Week Summer Performance Program, the last hurdle for scholarship winners to clear before beginning their college careers. The collective value of the scholarships presented to the young musicians exceeded $2 million.
Scholarship students were welcomed to the stage by Berklee president Roger H. Brown, Berklee’s vice president of education outreach and social entrepreneurship Lee Whitmore, founder of Berklee City Music J. Curtis Warner Jr., and Krystal Banfield, the dean of Berklee City Music. The concert showcased the talents of five Berklee City Music ensembles and special guest jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison, a Berklee alumnus and director of the internship program at Tipitina’s, the City Music Network site in New Orleans.
The recipients were all enrolled in Berklee City Music, a program that delivers high-quality contemporary music education instruction to deserving youth at no or low cost. The Berklee City Music Network is an association of 47 community organizations that serve more than 28,000 students in the U.S. and Canada each year. Since its inception, Berklee City Music has awarded 236 four-year full-tuition scholarships totaling more than $13 million.
Nick Balkin is a publicist in Berklee’s Media Relations department.
Berklee City Music students onstage at the Berklee Performance Center during the August scholarship concert.
