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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The Sounds of a Starr
Lee Fish
2017For my final culminating experience project, I am planning to arrange and record the wonderful compositions of my mother and Berklee graduate, Lori Starr. Sadly, about three and a half years ago she passed away but left an incredible legacy for me to carry on. Starting in high school, she was an extremely hard working musician who performed, taught, and then took on the job as a full-time mom while continuing to pursue her passion for composing. I remember very clearly hearing her visions for arrangements and instrumentation. Recording her original music was always her dream, but because of her competing responsibilities it never became reality.
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CE Project
Alix Goffic
2017I would like to create a new musical concept linked with social and environmental values to raise awareness in my home place. It will be a tool to promote French Guiana. The long term idea is to be a able to travel and perform the music and share the social and environmental messages thru it. I will also get in touch with fellow cinematographer, choreographer, painters... to extend the movement to a much global experience.
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Old and New Spirituals
Gregory George Groover Jr.
2017For my Culminating Experience I want to make a recording that features arrangements of Negro Spirituals as well as my own original compositions that are inspired by these Spirituals.
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Freedom of the Wilderness
Jared Henderson
2017Freedom of the Wilderness is a 5 movement piece that I created in collaboration with choreographer Jayne Paley and videographer Ashli Bickford. The piece features 10 musicians and 4 dancers and is presented as a short film. The message behind the project is to promote awareness for environmental conservation. Each movement is inspired by a different landscape from my hometown in Sisters, Oregon.
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Music and Dance in Culture (The Global Groovements)
Eunjeong Hwang
2017By researching on finding correlations between music and dance in many different cultures, I would like to present both formats, a documentary and a performance/flash mob.
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Music with film
Seulgi Hwang
2017My intention regarding the culminating experience/final project is to compose, perform, and record an album with original music that will be based on different and very important musical influences that made an impression on me during my childhood and adolescence.
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The Kalesma Project (The Calling)
Vasileios Kostas
2017My artistic project is an offering to revitalize into a contemporary context, the little-known, yet passionate and relevant , bhakti poetry from the Indian Subcontinent. Etymologically the word bhakti has atleast two levels to its meaning. The root bhaj means to share, to participate, to belong to. It also means, a state of being in ‘loving-devotion’, ‘absorption in love’, and ‘a spontaneous expression of love’.
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The Anthropocene
Isaac Levien
2017My project will be in two parts. The first part will be a composition based around the idea of the "anthropocene" and how humanity has affected and lives alongside the natural world around us looking at our past, our present and our future through music. The second part will be a business proposal for a non-profit artist collective that consumers will gain access to through proof of making a positive environmental change.
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Music of the Great Lakes
Andrew McAnsh
2017My vision is to compose a 5 - part suite entitled "Music of the Great Lakes" where each lake hosts a different tribe.
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Free Spirits
Lesley Mok
2017Much of my experience in Global the past three years has challenged me to think about the union of multiples roles as performer, composer, educator, social activist, and therapist into one. For my culminating project, I want to explore the work of Mary Lou Williams, Abbey Lincoln, Alice Coltrane, and Denise Levertov. These women all have overcome enormous adversity and made significant contributions through their work as artists.
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G. Jazz Music tools, to compose a Suite for educational purpose
Orion Morales Gonzalez
2017I want to create a musical suite, with the lenguaje learned at the BGJI, specifically the rhythmic concept learned in "Danilo Perez Performance Lab", Choose in a concrete way, 6 musical tools, learned and compose, based on these tools, 4 movements, An estimated time 35H40 minutes, in jazz approach, in an orchestral format of approximately 12 musicians, including strings, horns and rhythm section. With the purpose that the performer identifies these tools in the movements and can learn to develop them consciously. For this we will recording the suite, and the musical scores will be edited with a manual of instruction, of how the Global Jazz tools have been used in the composition. With this to inspire other kind of orchestras, professional or students ensembles, for study and performance the jazz suite, and at the same time to integrate into their language these concepts.
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Classical and Jazz - Collaboration and Communication
Chase Morrin
2017This project seeks to bring Classical and Jazz musicians together in the form of a Jazz quartet and Classical string quartet, teaching and documenting the process of collaboration and communication of ideologies.
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Songs of love-thieves
Sujatha Rajasekar
2017I will compose music based on film. I have two possiblities now, first is having project with film director, and I will be music director of the film. But it might be hard to find someone. So second posible project will be compose music based on films that I got inspired by. Both project will be representing the film and I will play both music and the film for my final presentation.
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CE Project
Max Ridley
2017This project will involve me bringing two of my greatest loves in life together, Music and Science Fiction. I will do this in three ways, the first being writing pieces based on some of my favorite Sci-Fi stories and authors. The second will be to put together a group using non-conventional instrumentation to create a sonic palate somewhat unfamiliar. This is to have an effect of the futuristic, treating this ensemble as if it’s a standard format but in another time period. Like a classical string quartet or a jazz quintet but in an age where we have evolved into another “standard” format, whatever this may be. This is only a creative projection, much like an author’s vision of a future to set a story in. This is not a prediction based on current trends in music. The third is going to be using certain effects (electronics/pedals) on acoustic instruments to bring in a “cyborg” element of having both the organic and the mechanic operating in the same organism. The obvious thing to do would be to use all electronics or programing but I really want to take it in a different direction and have everybody first and foremost playing an acoustic instrument before this electronic element is added.
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Embracing
Jonathan Suazo
2017Into the musical part of the 1st season in the Video Cultural Documentary series “EMBRACING”; An entertaining and educational series focused on learning, sharing, and documenting the treasures that certain parts of the world have in three specific categories: Gastronomy, Historic Monuments and of course Art. The 1st season of Embracing will be about the Dominican Republic, an integration of Afro-Dominican Folkloric Rhythms in a contemporary setting providing new interesting combinations and possibilities. A huge part of my roots and only the beginning of a life long journey.
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Redemption
Nathaniel Winn
2017This recording project will consist of compositions written in reflection of stages in my life that have brought me to where I am today.
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Son of Tigris & Amman Music Institute
Layth Al Rubaye
2016The first part of the culminating experience is my first album of original music entitled ‘Son Of Tigris’. This musical suite will feature my original music, which comes from deep within my musical roots and is tied with all the other musical influences I have accumulated over the years, creating a new platform for the violin as well as a cultural and musical bridge between Arabic music and Jazz. The second part of the project is the vision of opening the ‘Amman Music Institute’ where I will bring years of musical training and a love for music education to the Jordanian community, in the hopes that it can unite Jordanian musicians of all genres but mainly work closely with refugees in and around the city and provide them with a chance to explore music and give them hope of leading their own lives.
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Finding my identity through Korean traditional music
GaYoung Bae
2016My culminating experience thesis subject is “finding my identity from Korean traditional music”. I researched about Korean traditional music and Korean Philosophy and I applied those elements into my compositions. I recorded five songs. The first 3 songs are based on Korean traditional music. Specially the third one “OHHO” is based on Korean traditional rhythm and I tried to describe diverse emotional ups and downs from our daily lives. And the rest of two songs are based on a story and poem that I wrote from my imagination. Korean music and philosophy is very related to each other. The music implies life, universe and even nature. I tried to put my life and philosophy into my composition like my ancestor did.
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Borikén 1493: A Rediscovery Of Puerto Rico
Edmar Noé Colón Gierbolini
2016This project, will attempt to raise awareness in the people of Puerto Rico through the use of an interdisciplinary work of art. This work starts from an idea of a musical piece for large orchestra that I began writing in the summer of 2015, which now has been expanded to many different forms and formats within music and other disciplines.
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Eternal Bliss: A suite for septet
Hayden Farrar
2016This project started with the idea of furthering my understanding of the compositional process while searching for harmonies that are not yet common in the modern jazz genre. Eternal Bliss is the culmination of influences from across an array of genres such as but not limited to, Classical, Chamber, Jazz, Cuban and various percussion based music from around the world. The instrumentation is relatively unusual and allowed for me to have the freedom to depict the influences of the piece with greater accuracy than if I had written for more traditional jazz instrumentation. The writing process took place over a three month period where I was constantly editing and revising a handful of core ideas. The recording took place in Mixx One studios in Boston over the course of two days followed by three weeks of post production. The final product will be released online accompanied by an EPK and an official release concert in Toronto, Canada.
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Unusual Improvising Techniques for the Learning Musician
Anthony Fung
2016My first final project will be a recording of an album which is my effort to bring to the fore the soloist side of the Greek Lute (Laouto).
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Andalusian Music And Music from the Maghreb
Noam Israeli
2016The objective of this project is to dive into the Andalusian tradition, and the many other traditions of the Maghreb region. The Maghreb region is in Northwest Africa. It includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. The ultimate goal of this project is to find different ways to fuse elements from these traditions with elements from Jazz, and vice versa.
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SHAPE
Seungho Jang
2016My culminating Experience project, idea from like this ‘what I have my own specific shape as a musically, and personally. And then I look back upon the past of my Berklee life. Since I study at Berklee Global Jazz Institute, it has challenged me to grow and gain experience form new concepts, I formularized to find the ‘Shape’ of myself. From this word ‘Shape’ I have made my own definition of each letter from this word. ‘S’ is for ‘Spiritual’ ‘H’ is for ‘Heart’ ‘A’ is for ‘Ability’ ‘P’ is for ‘Personality’ ‘E’ is for ‘Experience’ And then try to gather my important experiences from my musical journey to each word.
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Discovering myself and being an ambassador
Seungha Lee
2016My Proposed Culminating Experience was creating an album that can introduce the culture of South Korea to the world. I want to be a music ambassador to the people around the world because I believe that South Korea has great philosophy towards all mankind from five thousand years ago. My goal for this project was to create pieces to express my thought towards this competitive society and give a better suggestion for human being to live coexistence.
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Peiying’s Recital
Peiying Li
2016In order to present the results of my studies, to reach my career goal and to spread Chinese culture through my music, my final project is to have a recital where I present my original compositions with Chinese culture elements.