Above The Basement - Boston Music and Conversation

Berklee College of Music in Boston is one of the premier music schools in the world. We have talked with many fantastic Berklee grads, including the folks from Honeysuckle, RIPE, Alison Keslow and Matt McArthur to name just as few as well as musicians and Berklee professors Bonnie Hayes and Susan Cattaneo.

We wanted to talk with the man who helped make this school the institution it is today so we jumped at the chance to speak with drummer, humanitarian, entrepreneur and Berklee president Roger Brown.

Roger has had a prolific career, including co-directing one famine relief program called Land Bridge on the Cambodia-Thailand border which was the largest emergency food distribution effort ever attempted and another called Save The Children in Sudan.

Later he co-founded Bright Horizons Family Solutions, which provided on-site child care for client-company employees and is also the founder of the Horizons Initiative, which provides services for homeless children, and the Bright Horizons Foundation for Children, which creates play spaces in homeless shelters.

Mr. Brown became president of Berklee College of Music in 2004.

We sat with Roger in a performance classroom at 1140 Boylston Street and talked about his humanitarian efforts, Berklee goals for its current and future students, how they prepare students for a successful career and why music is so important.

Song List:

Song one: Beautiful Ones (Roger Brown)