Hi my name is Gojko Damjanic and I am one of the Assistant Directors of Admission at Berklee. It is my honor and privilege to start my blog with a little story of our trip to Belgrade, my hometown. In 1992 I left Belgrade to begin my studies at Berklee College of Music. 17 years later I came back with a group of Berklee Faculty to start the first official visit to this part of the world.  With the help of Multikultovator  and Vlada Djordjevic, along with MS “Stankovic”  Berklee College of Music organized a first official visit to Eastern Europe. Clinics and auditions were scheduled October 12th to October 17th 2009. Around 90 participants were in the clinics and 60 auditioners had a chance to meet Jason  Camelio Director, International Programs.Gregory  BadolaosAssociate Vice President International Programs and Kurt J. Biederwolf-Chair, Music SynthesiAll major TV stations including Radio TV Serbia and newspapers covered this event, speaking about this historical visit made by Berklee College of Music to this area of Eastern Europe.

Participants came from other countries  including Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia, which proved that Belgrade kept his role as the music center of Balkans. On Thursday October 15th, we organized Alumni Night where we hosted an event for current Berklee Students, Berklee Alumni and parents of Berklee students. We were pleased to find outré our Alumnus are doing great, Most of them are working in the industry and serving as role models to prospective Berklee students. Our team worked very hard – two full days of auditions and during our first day we had 37 participants! Even though we have to wait to see the results of this A/I trip our conclusion is this visit was a great success. We would like to thank everybody who helped to organize this event and we hope to see everyone in Belgrade very soon.

Gojko Damjanic in Belgrade
Gojko Damjanic in Belgrade

Thanks go to our partners Multikultovator, Vlada Djordjevic, and MS “Stankovic”