By Hanna C., CRLS, Junior
Six members of the CRLS World Jazz Ensemble, directed by Guillermo Nojechowicz, took the respected
Berklee College of Music Five-Week Summer Program by storm this summer, 2017 -- auditioning for and being accepted into an array of special ensembles, making the most of weekly jam sessions and performance opportunities, and networking with hundreds of musicians from around the world.
Itamar Baz, Tal Ben-Anat, Chris Dee, Max Kaufman, Lila Lifton, and I weren’t the first CRLS WJE students to attend the program -- and I doubt we’ll be the last. Izaak Biewald, Andrew Borron, and Arlo Sims (now undergraduates at Berklee College along with Chris Dee) also attended in years past. Not to be overlooked, Maria Penrice took part in Berklee’s Global String Intensive in June, and Douglas Appleman, too, participated in special week-long programs for piano during his time at Rindge.
CRLS was definitely well-represented at Berklee this summer; Our music department should be proud of the talent and motivation it has nurtured in so many students.
As hinted, the program is five weeks long and strongly performance-oriented. Students attend theory, musicianship, and elective classes (whether it be Song Demo Production or Open Drum Circle), and are placed in ensembles of their chosen genre which perform during the final week of the program. A brief summary of my personal experience: I took “Songwriter Workshop” and “Jazz Arranging and Composition” as my elective classes and auditioned for the Balkan/Middle Eastern ensemble. My mind was simply blown by the people I met and the music to which I was exposed in that Balkan Ensemble...
I know, without hesitation, that World Jazz Ensemble is what led me to spend my summer at Berklee this year. Not only that, but WJE has redefined my whole trajectory in music. Through it, I discovered a new passion and began to take music more seriously… seriously enough to spend my summer at Berklee. This past year has been a wonderful, intense musical journey, and on behalf of my peers who also attended Berklee this summer, thank you, CRLS and all of our teachers.