Winners of the scholarships will be given the opportunity to re-audition for a full music scholarship in performance, yes, but also disciplines such as music education and music business.
Already, the Barbadian participants were brought together for a preparatory workshop during which the college’s Director and Associate Professor John Pierce gave a rundown of Berklee’s programmes, which covers a wide range of genres, Jazz included.
Barbados is the official Berklee audition location in the southern Caribbean.
Trinidadian Jazz Singer Vaughnette Bigford was one of the lucky 16 to win a summer scholarship since the auditions began five years ago. Bigford is fresh from her 2008 scholarship. She will demonstrate her fine-tuned vocal chops at a coming-out concert with Trini guitarist Theron Shaw later this month. More on this in a later edition.
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January 18th, 2009 at 1:15 am
Hold on there now. Great things are “gwan.” We are “gonna” meet.
January 17th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
John
I am sorry I missed you in Barbados, I so look forward to meeting you and Minchie.
January 11th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
V,
When Caribbean musicians begin to wake up to the magnitude of the responsibilities that a jazz musician shoulders, they will take advantage of these kinds of excellent opportunities. The truth is that laziness and making peace with mediocrity appears to be the order of the day with many of our artists in the region.
They don’t want to expand their horizons and deal with how myopic some of them really are; its only when you encounter other artists in competitive situations like the Berklee one, that you can identify, correct and think out of creative boxes.
January 11th, 2009 at 10:36 am
I really wish more Caribbean musicians would take advantage of this opportunity.