Dear members of the Berklee community,
On June 8, William “Bill” Gitt, former faculty member and chief engineer at Berklee, passed away at age 86.
Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Bill got his start at Dartmouth College in the early 1950s, as a student building electronics for the college’s radio station. He joined the U.S. Army after college, where he expanded his knowledge of electronics. Bill contracted at RCA for the army on the first silicone-based computer in Camden, New Jersey.
Dear members of the Berklee community,
This week Berklee lost a longtime colleague, mentor, collaborator, and educator, John Marasco, who passed away after a long illness on September 11, 2018, at the age of 65. John was a faculty member in the Guitar Department for more than 30 years, and his loss is felt deeply by all who knew him throughout his long career as a musician and a teacher.
Dear Members of the Berklee Community,
On July 10, Mike Denneen, an esteemed faculty member, accomplished producer and engineer, and strong presence in the Boston music community, passed away at age 54 from cancer at his home in Watertown, Massachusetts, surrounded by family and good friends.
An associate professor in the Music Production and Engineering Department since 2011, Mike was a successful producer, engineer, and keyboardist whose credits include recordings with venerable musicians Aimee Mann B.M. ’80, Patty Larkin ’74 ‘02H, Letters to Cleo, Kay Hanley, the Click Five, Guster, Howie Day, Fountains of Wayne, and Morphine. He also has credits on movie soundtracks such as Magnolia, and national branding campaigns for L.L. Bean, Dr Pepper, and the National Football League.
Dear members of the Berklee community,
Berklee lost one of its most venerable faculty members when David Linwood “Lenny” Stallworth passed away on December 20, 2017 at age 58. Lenny was an associate professor in the Ensemble Department who taught private bass lessons and a variety of ensembles during his fourteen-year career at Berklee.
Lenny was a teacher’s teacher. He had a special ability to motivate and inspire students while guiding them through their learning process and musical journey. “We all have a destiny, and I try to make students realize that each of them is a unique individual and you don’t have to run anyone else’s race. I connect the fact that if we can find the one unique part, that’s what’s going to make you separate from the masses. The upside is that we all have something to contribute, no matter what. Each student has something that the world can only get from that particular student.”
Dear members of the Berklee community,
Teaching keeps me up to date and around good players. If you’re going to be a teacher and talk about something all day, you gotta be able to do it.
Those are the words of former longtime Berklee faculty member Andy McGhee, who passed away on October 12 in Atlanta. With Andy’s passing, Berklee lost one of the seminal figures in its development. He would have been 90 years old on November 3.
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