Berklee Blogs

First-hand accounts of the Berklee experience

Tag: swing

swing

Schooled in Groove

To many musicians, the groove is the basis of all that we do. It’s the feel; the groove moves us. As we wrapped up the last day of the Berklee Groove School program at the new campus in Valencia, the groove was in full effect.

2012 groove school dance

George Russell, Jr. wants you to feel the groove. So, get up and dance!

I do not think the students had any idea what pianist, composer and professor of harmony at Berklee George Russell, Jr. had in mind when he asked the group to get up out of their chairs and start to get their bodies in motion. The result put the icing on the cake of this 4-day program by making the students do what they had been studying over the long weekend. Shake it, baby! 

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The Rise of Emily Miller

Move over Diana Krall and Norah Jones! There’s a new leading lady in town, and her name is Emily Miller.

Readers of Berklee-Blogs may recognize her name from my Singer Showcase post, whom I called “the real star of the showcase.” I also said that I would “pay good money to see her headline a show,” so you can imagine my delight when I found out that Emily was headlining her own show at the Berklee Performing Center for Family Weekend!

Emily couldn’t have had a better opening act than the widely popular and successful Berklee a cappella group Pitch Slapped. The International Competition of Collegiate A Cappella champions and Season 2 contestants on the NBC show The Sing Off performed several new arrangements, and had several new members take solos. The group also announced their plans for a full length album and a West Coast tour, demonstrating that they have no plans of slowing down.

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Berklee’s SXSW Party at Lucky Lounge in photos

Back from SXSW in Austin, where Berklee hosted three events again this year. The thirteen alumni and student bands who played at Berklee’s parties made their mark among the dozens of alumni bands performing at shows and parties around Austin last week (who were in turn among 2,000 plus (!) bands playing at the 25th Anniversary of SXSW.

We had a good turnout at Off the Record at the Lucky Lounge (St. Patrick’s Day no less) and possibly our biggest crowd yet at Friends on 6th St. the following day for Berklee’s 6th Annual Official SXSW Party. The club counted nearly 750 people during the course of the day.

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