On this page, you can find the Culminating Experience (CE) Projects for all graduate students from the Berklee College of Music master’s program Global Jazz from 2015 – present. Click on any title for more information and access to the full paper and other deliverables (if available).
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Catabolic Collapse
Nishchal Manjunath
2022My project ‘Catabolic Collapse’ investigates the theory and causes for the potential collapse of western society and democracy, within the next two decades. The central idea of catabolic collapse, is that a dynamic system (such as globalized society) must require an ever-increasing supply of resources to sustain it’s growth. If the system was ever to outgrow the availability of resources, growth would begin to slow, eventually stop, and begin a process of collapse. The system must also be resilient to crises, which it has shown that it often isn’t, proved time and time again by market volatility and more recently a bottle neck in the global supply chain. These crises can lead to conflicts and political aggressions related to the need for access to resources, for example fossil fuels, water, food security, or land mass. Climate change in the meantime, is predicted to place enormous stress on the procurement of all of these resources, and while the demand for these resources only increase as the human population continually grows, and all parts of the system having huge emissions footprints, the only possibly outcome for our current societal trajectory is a huge decline in living standards by the mid century (2050). The only way of salvaging this situation, comes from very urgent societal transformation, initiated by rapid grassroots action. The government establishments of the world and the fossil fuel industry at large have been proven to have had immense mutual support, and currently cannot be completely trusted to tackle the immense scale of the problem, as doing so would be completely anti-capitalistic. The reason why the industry puts up such resistance to changing their business model, such as the creation of climate-denial think tanks like the Cato Institute or NIPCC, is because seriously tackling climate change on a united front is a complete 180 reversal of their entire existence to society. The movement for action on climate change asks the question of the fossil fuel industries relevance to future society, and hence their position as the power brokers of the world. Only through a united front of average citizens do we stand a chance of seeing any change to our system, one which is currently designed to bring about the end of an era of human technological power.
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Empty Caverns: DC Social/political effects on the music
Geraldo Marshall
2022My culminating experience project is a 5 song tribute to the many people and places that shaped Washington DC’s unique musical identity. Each song is dedicated to a location or person that is significant to the city’s musical history. Initially, I wanted to discuss the effects of black American music on Washington DC’s political and social culture. However, over the course of my research it became clear that I was discussing the effect of the political and social structures on the music. Themes of development, protest, liberation, courage, grief and struggle are expressed through the music. I talked to educators, musicians, historians, advocates for the arts and residents of the city during my research to help develop a holistic sense of how the city’s music scene had changed from the 1950’s to now. The project was inspired by the continued closing of jazz clubs such as Bohemian Caverns, SOTTO, and Twins Jazz. Venues I had aspired to headline that closed due to increased property values and taxes. I’m hoping the project will serve as a reminder to the world of how culturally rich the city of DC is despite the many challenges faced by artists.
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Matria
Carlos Raúl Molina Hernández
2022Matria is the name of project, that intends through indigenous Ecuadorian folklore and jazz, to explore the importance of recognizing oneself in the source, in the mother. The idea of accepting myself within a medium as competitive as music, and understanding that only by honoring my history, I could generate sincere artistic pieces, linked to my perspective as an individual and even discovering myself within jazz as a fresh voice, which does not try to rescue any tradition but to rescue myself from the uncertainty of knowing who I am.
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Home is a River
Taraneh Mousavi
2022My CE project “Home Is a River” is a recording project exploring the metamorphosis of home and belonging in the aftermath of immigration, consisting of four pieces: 1. Home Is a River 2. Conversations under Water 3. Land of a Thousand and One Smiles 4. The Sea is Calling Together, these pieces form a personal/collective narrative, based on interviews I had with five Iranian artists in the diaspora and my own personal experience. 9 years ago, to pursue my passion for music and singing, I “chose” to leave my country Iran. Throughout these years, I have often wondered: “How is leaving a “choice” if staying entails you having to silence or suppress a part of yourself? Is staying a “choice” if it compromises your freedom? And where or what is my home, if I don’t fit into the one I was given?” The title of this project is my latest answer to these questions, explored through research, poetry, storytelling, and music. I originally intended this project to be a story about the Iranian artists in the diaspora, as I often found myself frustrated with the misrepresentation and the negatively loaded narrative about my homeland in the western media. However, the result turned out to be a story relevant to all the nomadic people in the hyper-globalized world we live in today. Doing the research for this project, I spoke five Iranian artists and these beautiful souls shared their life stories with me. We discussed the concept of home and belonging, and I started finding similarities between the stories. This fascinated me. These interviews and my personal story became the primary source for the structure of the narrative and inspired me to craft the poetry for this project. I chose water as the main element of my project, as I found the “Home of the Immigrant” to be a fluid state of the heart and the mind, constantly flowing, just like a river; During my creative research I found “gravity” in belonging, and I noticed that water reacted differently to gravity. These “fluid” thoughts resonated with me intensively, and it naturally flowed into the music. The music that flourished out of this concept is a fusion of everything that I carry with me to this day; my Persian roots, jazz, and contemporary music, all coming together through a strange gravity.
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Exploring Gaming through the "Jazz-tet"
Kenthaney Redmond
2022The goal of this project is to explore the use of music in video games and how music can be used to enhance common gaming mechanics such as low health, item collection, and progression indicators. This is not intended to be a full “music game” like Guitar Hero or Parappa the Rapper; rather, the intent is to find the medium between music as a background element and music as the main mechanic. With that goal in mind I used Unity to create a few small games and took examples from some current games to compare how these mechanics are currently handled musically and provide examples of how they might be enhanced. Additionally, I employed the use of a jazz sextet because I believe the improvisational elements of jazz would be essential. Furthermore, generally small jazz ensembles aren’t used in game music so I wish to explore that as well. During this process I learned a few things about why the current design of game music and sound effects work well. Sometimes my changes were very subtle and the effectiveness was questionable. However, I found places where the design was changed that I think could be useful to the industry overall.
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Dialogues: Composing music through the intersection of flamenco music and post-impressionistic European composers
Isaac Romagosa
2022This project aims to develop a different approach to the flamenco music composition based on the mix and integration of different concepts and ideas from European post-impressionstic composers like Lili Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen or Béla Bartók. Flamenco and classical and contemporary music have had a huge influence on me all my musical academic years and I wanted to explore the possibilities that the fusion of these two worlds could provide. First I started by analyzing the seven modes of limited transposition by Olivier Messiaen and some of the work by Lili Boulanger, pieces such as ""D’un Matin de Printemps” (1917) or “D’un vieux jardin” (1914). I discovered that some of Messiaen’s modes, specially the 3rd and 4th mode, share similarities with the Phrygian Spanish Scale, scale that is used to give the flamenco flavour or color, as it contains the same kind of intervallic pattern but 3 times, generating a 3 tonic system that allows to move in major thirds. Lili’s Pedal concept also served as a drone idea sometimes used in flamenco music. I picked 3 different flamenco palos (flamenco sub-styles): Buleria de Cadiz, Buleria de Jerez and Tientos and applied some of this ideas to create 4 different tunes.
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Atagahi the Enchanted Lake: Musical Storytelling and Human's Relationship with Nature
Andre Sudol
2022My culminating experience project explores and emphasizes music as a vehicle for storytelling. The project features a 20 minute long composition for a 5 piece chamber ensemble plus jazz quartet that follows the narration of a Cherokee folktale “Atagahi,” which both evokes a sense of wonder, mystery, and respect towards nature, and warns us what might happen if we abandon this respect. The narration simply guides the listeners’ imaginations in the right direction, allowing the music to do a majority of the storytelling. Music has the ability to evoke a nuanced sense of setting, atmosphere, and character, and can immerse any listener in an abstract, but uniquely vivid journey. Using narration as an accompaniment to the music will allow this storytelling capability of music to be fully realized, as the narration will simply guide the listener, providing a bit of concrete imagery to the abstract musical story. The unique instrumentation reflects the oral nature of folktales; the chamber ensemble can play complex, arranged passages, and the jazz quartet can replicate the improvisational aspects of oral storytelling. I hope that this project will help to reintroduce music as a storytelling medium and make challenging music more digestible to modern audiences.
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Past and Future, Never Present
David Suleiman
2022The purpose of my project is to dismantle stigmas and raise awareness around mental health struggles. As a recovering addict who’s now 10 years sober, I’ve had my share of mental health issues, the biggest one being crippling anxiety along with other issues at play. Mental health awareness hasn’t caught up yet in relationship to the collective rapid health decline, specially, post- covid. My goal is to bring visibility to this community from a personal point of view. By bringing the topic into light we would make a significant advance on these issues. Thorough research will strengthen the points I’m trying to convey with my compositions. If the conversation is not de-stigmatized, as you would talk about Type II diabetes, misinformation and ignorance could continue doing a lot of harm. People need to know its ok not to be ok as well as actively trying to understand our emotions better and seek help when needed. Whenever we write music that addresses a social and/or political issue we are opening the door for future business endeavors and collaborations. We don't really know the extent of these stigmas impact, but I'm willing to spend my life figuring it out.
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Path to Freedom
Eunji You
2022The title of my culminating experience project is “Path to Freedom” I wanted to explore how music has contributed to my journey both as a musician and person. I wanted to convey on a deeper level how my time in the US and how music throughout my life has shaped my current self and future self. I chose to delve into four specific different topics that are important to me personally; topics that that have allowed me to grow into the person I am today. These specific topics are, “Equality, Street Harassment, Identity and lastly Freedom.” The ultimate aim of my culminating experience is to express all my personal experiences, everything I’ve learned, and the values and social issues that I believe through music. And to be able to do so applying all the musical and life knowledge skills I’ve learned from my time at Global Jazz.
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Climate Apocalypse: Human Impact on the Environment’s Equilibrium
Davide Cerreta
2021This Culminating Experience paper explores the causes of mankind’s actions on the environment. Through original compositions and poems inspired by scientific research, the artist intends to bring awareness to the listener. Through his music, the artist describes four possible catastrophic scenarios that we might encounter in the near future. The music is presented visually with sand art and animation videos. This paper also examines the causes and the possible solutions for the environmental problem.
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Music for Creative Learning
Emiel De Jaegher
2021The current global environment demands an arts education that uses music to make children go beyond acquiring science and math skills, and embraces their full imaginative potential to think creatively. My mission is to use music as an interconnective medium for creative learning and cultural immersion in early education. My educational approach, called Music for Creative Learning, uses music as a medium for creative learning, featuring cumulative working modules catered to children ages four through twelve in schools and music programs across the United States. Children work at their own pace and form their own learning before moving on. I developed this because we don’t have systems currently that account for the fact that every learner process information differently. I also wanted this approach to simulate cognitive development, foster creativity, and develop global civics. I wrote four compositions in English, Spanish, French and Greek to represent how a child completes this curriculum, step by step, like a playthrough. Each piece combines academic subjects with musical sounds, tools, and rhythms, using interconnective learning and the sound before symbol method.
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Amb l'Herència com a Essència: Legacy and Gender Justice through Global Jazz and Interconnected Education
Mar Fayos Oliver
2021This master's thesis explores the topics of legacy, identity, and gender justice through Global jazz musical compositions and interconnected education. After conducting scholarly research on the political, social, and cultural history of Catalonia and Spain during the 20th century and connecting it with the works and contributions of Catalan and Spanish female social activists and female composers of the period, the author presents five new musical pieces. The compositions emanate from Global jazz aesthetics blended with reminiscences of Catalan and Spanish choral music, protest song, tradition, and folklore. The resulting musical works showcase the stories of three generations of the author's female ancestors, illustrated with informative video footage. The research conducted, together with the music presented, are used as a framework to develop the curriculum of a new non-profit educational program called Global Jazz For Change. The initiative aims to work with women at risk of exclusion in Catalonia, and later internationally, to foster self-expression through the creation of new Global jazz music with identity. The program's ultimate goal is to empower the participants to create awareness and become agents of change towards gender justice in their communities.
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Music and Abolition - Creating a world without policing: Music’s role in imagination, experimentation, and collectivity
Lily Finnegan
2021Music and Abolition explores music’s role in imagination, experimentation, and collectivity in creating a world without policing. Through abolition violent systems that maintain hierarchy will be replaced with sustainable, non violent systems. Total liberation will only come if the police are abolished. No amount of reform can change them when the root is tied into colonialism. In order to do this imagination and dreams are key in envisioning the world we want to see. For this project I used five books as the basis for my research: “We do this Til We Free us” by Mariame Kaba, “Carceral Capitalism” by Jackie Wang, “Are Prisons Obsolete?” by Angela Davis, “Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination” by Robin D. G. Kelley, and “The End of Policing” by Alex S. Vitale. Through music we can explore these ideas with experimentation and collectivity. The music for this project was written in a way that fostered non hierarchical band structures and free improvisation.
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Chilean Folkloric Rhythms and Global Jazz: The rescue of Chilean rhythms in extinction
Sebastian Fuentes
2021There are extinct or nearly extinct dances and rhythms in Chile. This CE Project consists of the creation of six compositions that mix rhythms of Chilean traditional music that are disappearing with global jazz, with the goal of rescuing these traditional rhythms and safeguard the culture and history of Chile. Many of these rhythms were part of the folklore in Chile during the 19th century. There were previous attempts to revitalize these rhythms especially with the research of Chilean folklorists during the 1950s and the compositions made by Chilean artists in the context of three music styles called Neofolclore, La Nueva Canción, and El Canto Nuevo, during the 1960s and early 1970s. These attempts were undermined by the censorship during the Agusto Pinochet’s dictatorship between 1973 and 1990. Many of the artists who composed this music were persecuted, kidnaped, tortured, exiled, or even executed during the dictatorship.
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A Bridge to the Past: The Origins and Evolution of Black American Music
Matt Gershun
2021This project celebrates the history of Jazz, the evolution of Black American Music, and its West African and Caribbean origins. Using the art of traditional storytelling, each chapter weaves historical narration together with live-in-studio performances of an original score. This project aims to present the history of Jazz in an accessible way that will hopefully awaken a curiosity in audiences of all ages and inspire viewers to learn more on their own.
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A Bird, A Landscape, the Sun, My Mother, Whichever Branch: The Poetry of Samuel Feijóo - Creativity and Identity in Motion
Ricardo Guerra
2021“A Bird, A Landscape, the Sun, My Mother, Whichever Branch: The Poetry of Samuel Feijóo - Creativity and Identity in Motion”, explores the intersections of poetry and music, language and improvisation, and the processes of translation between English and Spanish and between words and music. By translating four poems by Cuban artist and writer Samuel Feijóo from Spanish to English and setting these texts to music, Ricardo Guerra hopes to gain a deeper understanding for his own identity as a Cuban American immigrant and the duality this identity comes with in both language and music. By merging these translations with music that encompassed both Cuban folklore and contemporary improvisation within Black American music, Guerra seeks to represent bilingualism in speech and music as one work of art - a reflection of a bi-cultural mind, background, and community.
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Rediscovering Chilean Culture
Juan Jaramillo Zúñiga
2021The idea for my project started with a deep questioning of my roots as a Chilean musician. I’ve always been interested in the music and culture of my country. One of the aspects of my project was to further research the by government manipulated changes to the culture, especially the systemic oppression of the culture of African descendants. These forced changes have produced different versions of how our history was developed which sometimes clash with each other, not only in music, but also in other aspects of our culture and identity. There have even been versions of our history that deny the whole existence of both African cultural influence and the Afro- descendant community. For these reasons I decided to do a deep research about the origins of Chilean music and its history particularly about two different styles called “Cueca” and “Túmbe”. A profound understanding of these music styles was crucial to my project, not only the musical codes but also how the lyrics work and how this music relates to the dance. All these aspects were fundamental for putting together my project, in terms of the compositions and putting together the presentation where I exposed some of these historic and political issues.
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4 for Four: My Four Seasons for Jazz Quartet
Soojung Lee
2021The project was to present the four seasons I have been through, dealing with the Sewol Ferry disaster, the sinking of a ship that caused massive casualties, and Jung-in case, a child’s death as a result of abuse, and the process of overcoming Corona Blue. I chose chord-less quartet. This configuration, excluding polyphonic instruments, looks like a spacious space, but in fact, there is a lot of communication in it. When listening to Don Cherry’s Old And New Dreams with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell, I come to the realization that in the end, they become a mass and a film, and an attitude of listening is necessary for good communication. I blended with the counterpoint, an element of my favorite music genre, classical, and a chord-less quartet, a composition of four monophonic instruments. I referenced a lot of works by my favorite composers, and Bach's invention works were very good examples. The counterpoint he used keeps the main melody memorable even after the song ends due to the repetitive minority motif. When two or more motifs were played separately or simultaneously with the left and right hands, I took two saxophones as the center of exchange.
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Between Two Worlds
Giorgos Lernis
2021My culminating experience project “Between Two Worlds” was inspired by the on-going stereotyping against immigrants, based on their origins, religions and skin color. As a Cypriot immigrant myself residing in the United States for the past 22 years, I have personally experienced stereotyping and can recall several unpleasant experiences. Even though I have not experienced stereotyping or racism to the extent that other communities keep experiencing, because of my own experiences I am able to relate to this issue.
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The Bridge: A Musical Synthesis Between BIPOC Writers And Diasporic Music
Liany Mateo
2021My culminating experience project, The Bridge, is a musical synthesis between writers of African Descent and diasporic music. I studied the writing of 5 different women: Amina Gautier, Maya Angelou, Ijeoma Umebinyuo, Toni Morrison, and Donna Kate Rushin. I treated the music of each writer differently, connecting the music directly to either their writings or personal history. The project was completed in the form of 5 compositions and a twenty-minute lecture-style presentation.
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The Journey of Growing: My Life Story through Music
Misaki Nakamichi
2021My culminating experience project is to make a recording that is expressing certain experiences that have happened in my life. The music is an expression of experiences from my upbringing, my musical identity, and any events that have deeply inspired me. As Mr. Joe Lovano told me “Jazz is self-expression”, I pursued how to express my feelings and to be able to create a message with my music. I identified which events, experiences, and time periods in my life and what specific emotions, feelings, sensations, and moments have given me. I worked on learning how to express them in my music. For example, memories from my childhood, the gratitude to people who have influenced me, nostalgia for my hometown being away from Japan, meetings and partings, and the hopeful vision of my future. I created five songs and an improvisational solo piece. Each song has a theme for different time periods of my life and is based on my experiences and emotions.
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Hear Me Speak
Naomi Nakanishi
2021Hear Me Speak is a multidisciplinary, sonic portrait consisting of five original poems and compositions each drawing from my personal experiences as a queer, femme, and Asian-American musician. It is accompanied with a short film by videographer, Olivia Blaisdell, whose work focuses on the queer community of color in Boston. Hear Me Speak examines America’s Anti-Asian Immigration Policies and Eastern Asia’s traditional patriarchal system, both of which facilitated an aggressive culture of stereotyping and racialized sexism towards the Asian diaspora. It is an artistic statement that redefines how musicians dismantle monolithic, racial stereotypes against Asian Americans with the intent to radicalize the femme identity outside the construct of “whiteness,” thus creating more visibility for all women of color and BIPOC artists.
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Metamorphosis
Hanna Noh
2021My project is a work of self-discovery and metamorphosis. Throughout my life, I have been mostly reactionary. I honestly haven’t thought very deeply about my identity as a musician and human being and about all the communities and musical traditions that have led me on this path. This project is a type of self-discovery and introspection for me to connect with my multi-dimensional past and has helped lead me to where I am at now: My project delves into the life of non-else than myself. It is a work of self-discovery and metamorphosis. Throughout my life, I have been mostly reactionary. I haven’t thought deeply about my identity as a musician and human being. I haven’t thought deeply about all the communities and musical traditions that have led me on this path. This project is a type of self-discovery and introspection for me to connect with my multi-dimensional past. This project has helped me deepen my understanding of myself, my background, and what I care about — Through music, I can change the world. I can unite cultures, I can heal broken hearts. Yes, through music I can become an agent of positive change.
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Our Neighbors Without Shelter
Paul Pandit
2021“Our Neighbors Without Shelter” combines my original compositions, video, and audio clips from interviews to share the stories of people who are houseless and raises awareness about the issues they face. The five compositions I wrote are based off the responses I got to five questions I asked when interviewing houseless people over the past year. For the video, I edited each song to around two minutes and included interview clips in the music and as transitions, to create a narrative. The video I shot, both of people being interviewed and other scenes, serve to support the music and people’s voices. The other objective of my presentation was to educate people on services that exist in Boston to help the houseless community, and to emphasize what more needs to be done to end houselessness. I researched different initiatives the city of Boston is taking to end houselessness in partnership with non-profit organizations. My extra committee member, Dwayne Brown, is the volunteer services coordinator for the Boston Public Health Commission Homeless Services. He provided me with a deeper understanding of the issues facing the houseless community, and what the city of Boston is doing to help. The long-term goal of my project is to create a music outreach program for the houseless community. I hope to bring regular live music to shelters, soup kitchens, and/or transitional housing as a form of therapy for people who are going through all the difficulties surrounding houselessness.
