Monthly Archives: April 2012

2012 CLAEM – Closing Celebration

By: Jason Camelio, Director of International Programs

The 3rd edition of the Congreso Latino de Escuelas de Música has closed with a truly special event. 2012 marks the 30th anniversary of Conservatorio Souza Lima. Founder/director Antonio Mario Cunha capped the Congress week with an excellent celebration honoring Souza lima at the Sao Paulo municipal building, attended by hundreds of guests and officiated by Councilman Jose Police Neto. Read more…

Souza Lima holds a special relationship with Berklee through our International Network. During this 12-year relationship, Berklee has been fortunate to have a number of highly trained musicians come to Boston through our academic agreement and musical exchanges. Many of these musicians have returned to Sao Paulo and Brazil as well as traveled to other parts of the globe to lead successful careers as professional artists and educators with international reputations.

Vice president for global initiatives honors Mario and Souza Lima in Sao Paulo.

Like Berklee, Souza Lima’s success is the result of one man’s vision with the help and support of an exceptionally hardworking team of collaborators, staff members and educators, and most importantly — the passion and dedication of its students. It is Antonio Mario’s entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to excellence in contemporary music education that attracted Berklee to forge this relationship. Mario’s vision and commitment have led Souza Lima to 30-years of success and places among the leading institute of contemporary music education in Latin America and the world.

Mario is never one to rest on his success. Instead he has the vision to see the profound potential of contemporary music education throughout Latin America. With the help of world-renown artist and Berklee professor Oscar Stagnaro, he has invited us all here to participate in an excellent new organization – CLAEM.

Berklee is honored to be associated with Souza Lima and all of the members of CLAEM. We wish Mario and all at Souza Lima a happy birthday and much prosperity for the next 30-years.

2012 Souza Lima 30th Anniversary Celebration

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Update from CLAEM – Students and Faculty Take the Stage

By: Jason Camelio, Director of International Programs

We have had a fantastic week at the 3er Congreso Latino de Escuelas de Música at Conservatorio Souza Lima in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Throughout the week institutions and organizations from around Latin America have held sessions sharing information about their programs and discussing opportunities for a broad range of collaborations. But, the Congress has also been established to use this time to share important cultural, musical and pedagogical information and concepts.

During these presentations, attendees have been treated to a number of world-class artist/educators representing a variety of traditions from the Brazilian music culture. This included performances by Filo Machado, Pedro Ramos, Paulo Braga and many more. Souza Lima also took the group of institutions to important musical and cultural sites in Sao Paulo, including Bar Ódoborogodó and Memorial de América Latina.

2012 CLAEM Paulo Braga

One of the highlights this week has been hearing the excellent work being done by the students representing the institutions at the Congress. Students from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Panama and Peru formed three music groups that performed last night at Souza Lima. The students demonstrated a high level of skill and musicianship, having only 3-days to put together short sets of music to be performed. Their fine performances are a testament to their exceptional hard work and the dedication of the institution leaders and faculty members of the CLAEM partners.

Tonight we wrap things up with a celebration for Souza Lima, which is entering it’s 30th year! More news to come.

2012 CLAEM Student Concert

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Nashville Berklee Jam with Reese Wynans

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of my dad playing records and, dare I say, reel to reel tapes of the music of Paul Butterfield, John Lee Hooker, Santana, and Derek and the Dominoes. I guess this music made an impression, because my early teens in the early 1980′s I was buying my own records, not of the pop-based FM radio music of my generation, but of the previous generations more blues-based artists. While everyone else was listening to E.L.O. and Michael Jackson, I was discovering Jimi Hendrix, the Allman Brothers, BB King, and Bobby Bland. Sure, I liked some of the 80′s guitar rock of the day, but always kept digging back to a more rootsy sound. Then right smack in the middle of 80′s hair band mania came Stevie Ray Vaughan, and I immediately related to his music.

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Congress in Sao Paulo

2012 Congreso Latino de Escuelas de Música

III CLAEM

By: Jason Camelio, Director of International Programs

The Berklee International Network (BIN) partner Conservat orio Souza Lima in Sao Paulo, Brazil has much to celebrate. Souza Lima is celebrating its 30th anniversary. This institution, which boasts a number of exceptional Berklee alumni among its faculty members such as vice director Lupa Santiago, is seen as a leader of contemporary music education in Brazil and throughout Latin America.

It is this highly regarded status that has attracted contemporary music educators to flock to Sao Paulo for the 3rd annual Congreso Latino Americano De Escuelas De Musica. The Congress is the brain-child of Antonio Mario Cunha, founder and director of Souza Lima and artist and Berklee professor Oscar Stagnaro. CLAEM aims to create, through Congress, a network of institutions to allow the exchange of academic information, educational and administrative concepts. The group will seek to create opportunities for its faculty members and students to benefit through through a variety of exchanges and events, thus contributing to the formation of a Latin music community. Continue reading →

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Film Scoring Student Compositions Come to Life with the Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra!

After a wonderful concert at Jordan Hall two weeks ago, the Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra is continuing to rehearse but in a very different manner. At the end of every semester, the orchestra rehearses two extra weeks to give Film Scoring and Composition students the opportunity to come in and conduct their original pieces live. Last week we had the privilege of having six very talented Film-scoring majors who were chosen individually by the Film Scoring faculty, come in to conduct their pieces. One of the biggest complaints that composers have is that they are unable to have their pieces played by live players very often. There’s only so much satisfaction and learning a person can do hearing their music played with MIDI instruments. It’s extremely beneficial to hear exactly what the notes on the page sound like with real, live players. So this was exciting for both the players and the composers! The orchestra loves playing new music by their peers; it is really inspiring to hear what your friends are writing while the composers had such a good time working with the orchestra and hearing their music come to life!

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