Lawrence Berk (December 10, 1908 – December 22, 1995)
was the founder of
Berklee College of Music, a pianist, composer and arranger, and educator.
Berk oversaw the growth of the modest Schillinger House music school into the Berklee College of Music, the largest independent school of music in the world. Between founding Schillinger House in 1945 and his retirement from Berklee College of Music in 1978, his entrepreneurial and music-industry savvy enabled the school's curriculum to keep place with popular music trends, developments in electronic music, and advancements in recording technology. He highly valued the practical application of classroom instruction, yet he guided the development of the curriculum to enable the school to become an accredited, degree-granting institution.
Early life and career
Born and raised in
Boston's West End,
[ Berk began playing professionally as a pianist at the age of 13 in dance orchestras led by Ruby Newman, Meyer Davis, and Joe Rines.][Hazell, Ed: ''Berklee: The First 50 Years'', (Berklee Press, 1995) p. 4] He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
with a degree in architectural engineering in 1932. With few engineering jobs available during the Great Depression, he moved to New York City, where he became a staff arranger at NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
and studied with music theorist and teacher, Joseph Schillinger
Joseph Moiseyevich Schillinger ( Russian: Иосиф Моисеевич Шиллингер, (other sources: ) – 23 March 1943) was a composer, music theorist, and composition teacher who originated the Schillinger System of Musical Compositio ...
.[Hazell (1995), p. 9] During World War II, he returned to Boston to work as a mechanical engineer at Raytheon
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitali ...
.
Berklee College of Music
After Schillinger died in 1943, Berk became one of 12 authorized teachers of the Schillinger System.[Hazell (1995), p. 12] He began teaching part-time on Saturdays with three students, but eventually quit his job at Raytheon to teach music full-time. In 1945, he purchased a three-story building at 284 Newbury Street and opened Schillinger House. Under his direction, enrollment in the first nine years increased tenfold,[Hazell (1995), p. 42] the curriculum expanded to include music education, and alumni began appearing in nationally famous orchestras such as Stan Kenton's.
In 1954, he changed the name to the Berklee School of Music, after his son, Lee Eliot Berk, to better reflect the school's broad curriculum. In the next few years, Berk added jazz musicians such as trumpeter Herb Pomeroy
Irving Herbert Pomeroy III (April 15, 1930 – August 11, 2007) was an American jazz trumpeter, teacher, and the founder of the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble.
Early life
Pomeroy was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, United States. He began playing ...
(1956), saxophonist Charlie Mariano
Carmine Ugo Mariano (November 12, 1923 – June 16, 2009) was an American jazz saxophonist who focused on the alto and soprano saxophone. He occasionally performed and recorded on flute and nadaswaram as well.
Biography
Mariano was born in ...
(1957),[Hazell (1995), p. 54] drummer Alan Dawson
Alan Dawson (July 14, 1929 – February 23, 1996) was an American jazz drummer and percussion teacher based in Boston.
Biography
Dawson was born in Marietta, Pennsylvania and raised in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Serving in the U.S. Army during th ...
(1957), and reed player John LaPorta (1962) to the faculty. Starting with the arrival of pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi
is a Japanese–American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader.
Akiyoshi received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in '' Down Beat'' magazine's annual Readers' Poll. ...
from Japan in 1956, Berk also directed and expanded recruitment of foreign students, which in 2010 made up 24.2 percent of the student body. In 1957, he instituted an innovative LP and score series, Jazz in the Classroom, featuring recordings of big band arrangements and performances by the school's best students, packaged with copies of the arrangements. In 1962, the school established the first college-level instrumental major in guitar.
In 1966, Berklee awarded its first bachelor of music degrees and moved into larger quarters at 1140 Boylston St. Under Berk's leadership, the school offered the first college-level courses in rock and pop music and composing for commercials. In 1970, it became the Berklee College of Music and Berk bestowed the college's first honorary degree on Duke Ellington in 1971. Other curriculum firsts included an electric bass guitar major established in 1973, and a jazz-rock fusion ensemble established in 1974. His final major expansion of college facilities was the acquisition of the Berklee Performance Center and an adjoining building used for additional classroom and rehearsal facilities and the college library in 1976.
After he retired in 1978, he served as chancellor until his death in 1995. His son, Lee Eliot Berk, succeed him as president of the college in 1979.[Hazell (1995), p.169]
Death
Berk died in Brighton, Boston
Brighton is a former town and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, located in the northwestern corner of the city. It is named after the English city of Brighton. Initially Brighton was part of Cambridge, and known as "L ...
.[
]
References
Further reading
* Small, Mark
"All the Right Moves - Lee Eliot Berk"
''Berklee Today'', Vol. 15, Issue 3, Spring 2004. Interview with Lawrence Berk's son, Lee Eliot Berk, the then retiring second president of Berklee College of Music.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berk, Lawrence
1908 births
1995 deaths
Berklee College of Music faculty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
20th-century American pianists
American male pianists
20th-century American male musicians
People from the West End, Boston
20th-century American academics