Overview: Lee Berk was president of his namesake Berklee College of Music for twenty-five years, where he turned a small, family-operated school into the world’s largest and most innovative music education institution.

In this book, you’ll learn how Berk led the institution’s unprecedented curricular developments in jazz and popular music, film scoring, music production and engineering, music therapy, and more, shattering conservatory models to provide training for countless world class artists and industry luminaries.

Historical records plus anecdotes from both famous and rank-and-file musicians portray Lee as an inspiring, bold visionary and a compassionate, generous man whose life affected musicians across the globe.

Verdict: Lee Eliot Berk, who I myself only just realized was the late president and namesake of the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and who passed away rather unexpectedly in late October of 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona, where he and his wife, Susan, have lived for the past 12 years, graduated from Brown University in 1964 and earned his law degree from Boston University in 1967. He began working at Berklee College of Music in 1966, serving first as bursar and supervisor of the Private Study Division.

He put his legal background to use by teaching courses on music law and copyright issues. He authored the book Legal Protection for the Creative Musician, which won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 1971 as best book in music.

He later served as Berklee’s vice president from 1971 to 1979 and worked on the acquisition of new properties in the Back Bay to address the needs of Berklee’s surging student population. Lee oversaw the purchase of property on Massachusetts Avenue and development of the site to become a residence hall, an educational facility, and the Berklee Performance Center. He became the college’s second president in 1979, succeeding his father, and held that post for 25 years until retiring in 2004.

This dedicatedly written and dutifully impassioned new book Lee Berk: Leading the Berklee Way was written by guitarist and noted journalist Mark Small with the help of Lee’s widow Susan and is so much more than a loving tribute to the Berk family and its impact on the music community and beyond, trust me on this.

Opening on the beginnings of Lee’s life, indeed even delving into his lineage, what comes forth on these pages as it eases the story forward chapter by chapter is that aside from being a humble, clinically minded, yet core needs grounded human being, Lee led Berklee with kindness and an entrepreneurial spirit.

Furthermore, he made Berklee into the world’s leader for contemporary music education as if he were organizing the local church fete! He didn’t need to grind gears to achieve what he knew had to happen for this facility to shine and rise to the heights he knew it could. No, for whilst other similar institutes (all be they of a lesser scale) strove to just be the best they thought they could be, Lee broadened their collective curricular scope to include music business, music technology, and music therapy.

He extended their reach and increased access opportunities by establishing Berklee’s International Network, Berklee City Music, Berklee Summer Programs, and Berklee Online. Indeed, Lee broke boundaries with brave new initiatives including the first songwriting major, accepting electric guitar as a principal instrument, and so much more.

His dedication to Berklee and their students was lifelong and fierce. Throughout his nearly 20 years in retirement, Lee stayed in contact with the Berklee community. He devoted his life to helping and supporting aspiring musicians. He was a wonderful, caring person and is missed today by all those that knew him, of that this book resoundingly, and rightfully echoes.

Oh, and as I am sure you are all wondering, the book obviously covers the whole Lee Berk / Berklee name thing too. “My father came home one day and reported that Fred Berman had come into his office and said, Larry, I had a dream last night that the name of the school was changed to Berklee and named after your son,” Lee historically recounts.

And thus he bestowed on him within that very same instant a unique distinction upon him from the time he was ten or eleven years old. In a letter January 14th, 1954, his father wrote to the commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Education, Board of Collegiate Authority, requesting that entity officially approve a name change Schillinger’s School of Music to Berklee School of Music. The state readily granted it. The rest is, as they say, musical history!

In closing, this book is a compellingly alluring read from start to finish, detailing all you could ever hope to know (and more) about a man whose kind gestures made over the years still lovingly resonate today, and who turned a part-time gig into a lifelong passion, not just a career.

To learn more about Lee Berk and the Berk family, you can explore two digital exhibits presented by the Berklee Archives: Berk Family Collection and Lee Eliot Berk.

The collections include assorted Berklee documents and ephemera; artifacts and awards presented to members of the Berk family in recognition of their service and accomplishments; other professional records or tributes; and scrapbooks, photographs, and audiovisual recordings.

About the Author - Mark Small launched his career as a music journalist in 1982 and has contributed hundreds of articles to publications including Guitar Player, Acoustic Guitar, Soundboard, DownBeat, and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, among others. He served as managing editor of Berklee Today magazine at Berklee College of Music for 26 years and co-authored the book Masters of Music: Conversations with Berklee Greats.

Small studied jazz guitar and composition and arranging at Berklee and earned his bachelor of music degree from New England Conservatory of Music and his master’s from California State University Fullerton (both in classical guitar). He has performed throughout the country as a soloist and with a variety of ensembles, including three televised appearances with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.

He has released nine albums featuring his works for guitar. His music is published by Les Productions d’Oz of Quebec, Canada. He lives in the Boston area with his wife MaryAnn. They have two daughters and six grandchildren.

www.berklee.edu

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