Berklee Blogs

First-hand accounts of the Berklee experience

Tag: bgji

bgji

BGJI: Letting Go of Ego and Making New Music

Berklee Global Jazz InstituteThe Berklee Global Jazz Institute (BGJI) is a performance program designed to foster creativity and musicianship through various musical disciplines, with pianist and composer Danilo Pérez as its artistic director. The BGJI provides a comprehensive contemporary music environment where students are given opportunities to explore their creativity to the highest level possible, advance the power of music as a tool for the betterment of society, and connect musical creative thinking with the natural environment.

BGJI

Neta Raanan

During my first audition for Berklee Global Jazz Institute I was star struck. Walking into the BGJI office, Danilo Perez, Marco Pignataro, and John Pattituci sat at a table in the corner of the room. The first time I had heard Danilo Perez was at the Blue Note in New York City with Jack DeJohnette’s band a few years earlier. Sitting behind him that evening I was convinced he had something similar to the powers of Storm from X-Men. With the rhythmic integrity and harmonic colors he played with it seemed like he could crack open the sky with thunder and rain or cause the sun to come out at will. Pattituci’s rich bass sound and the grooves he creates with Brian Blade on records like Wayne Shorter’s ‘Beyond the Sound Barrier’ are something friends I played with used to imitate as best as they could.

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BGJI: Learning and Growing Through New Experiences

Berklee Global Jazz InstituteThe Berklee Global Jazz Institute (BGJI) is a performance program designed to foster creativity and musicianship through various musical disciplines, with pianist and composer Danilo Pérez as its artistic director. The BGJI provides a comprehensive contemporary music environment where students are given opportunities to explore their creativity to the highest level possible, advance the power of music as a tool for the betterment of society, and connect musical creative thinking with the natural environment.

BGJI

Credit: Erick Salmon


Witness Matlou

My musical journey has been full of surprises, and a lot of them being meeting great people who’ve helped open doors for me. Especially to higher levels of learning. Looking back where I came from, it looked highly impossible, that a kid who grew up in the townships of Tembisa (Johannesburg- South Africa). Would end up here at Berklee College of Music. Among some of the best your musicians from around the world. Also a college with some of the best teachers in the world.

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Paris in April

The Berklee Global Jazz Institute is an honors performance program run by Danilo Perez. Isaac Haselkorn, a graduating drummer for the group writes about his experience at International Jazz Day in Paris.

When rumors first came out that our ensemble would be going to Paris to play at International Jazz Day, we couldn’t believe it. We had just finished a series of concerts and a clinic in Monterey California as Berklee’s representatives to the Next Generation Jazz Festival.

We arrived in Paris at 8 AM on Wednesday morning, dead tired.  Determined to seize the day, we resolved to do all the appropriately touristy things, given that we wouldn’t have another long block of time to do so. 

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Berklee Visits New Orleans at Jazz Education Network’s Conference

Liberal arts faculty member Fred Bouchard shares his impressions of Berklee’s January trip to a big national conference for people in the jazz field.

Risen from the ashes of IAJE under the auspices and hard work of Dr. Lou Fischer and Mary Jo Papich and their loyal board, the St. Louis-based Jazz Education Network hosted well over 2000 attendees in the Crescent City over winter break. The venue was the historic Hotel Roosevelt, which, sore-hit by Hurricane Katrina, had been smartly refurbished to its former glittery art deco glory. Attendance topped 2000, an encouraging feat, even if attendees from Europe were off. Soon came the first jam at Sazerac Bar, named for Cocktail #1 invented there.

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