Valencia Vibes: Berklee College of Music Takes on Spain

Photo courtesy of Berklee College of Music

Take Boston’s beloved Berklee College of Music, toss in a bunch of high-tech recording and production studios, 3,600-square-meter grounds, brand-new graduate degree programs, and finish it off with a dash of Spanish culture. The result? A recipe for the college’s new campus on the Mediterranean coast.

On Monday, Berklee president Roger Brown greeted 70 new graduate students on campus in Valencia, Spain, on their way to earning degrees in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games, Global Entertainment and Music Business, or Contemporary Studio Performance. The students—fresh out of undergrad and experienced professionals alike—hope this one-year program will be a chief ingredient for success in the music industry.

A good trek from Boston, the city of Valencia is located along the western coast of Spain along the Mediterranean Sea and is known for its orange-tree-dotted streets, its native paella dish, and the annual—and strikingly odd—Las Fallas coming-of-spring celebration. It’s a city that harmonizes its ancient cathedrals with its more contemporary buildings, and within the newer quarters sits the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, a renovated space where this new branch of Berklee awaits. Inside: classrooms, rehearsal rooms, studios, tech labs, an 80-square-meter recording area with soaring ceilings and changeable wall and floor surfaces, and all the latest equipment.

Alongside its master’s programs, the Valencia campus is also host to a Global Studies Program that gives Boston students the opportunity to study abroad in the city (not to mention a chance to ditch the dreadful New England winter for sunny Spain), as well programs for visiting artists. What’s more, there’s an International Career Center to aid students in professional networking, which, in this economy, may prove to be the most useful tool for the students while studying abroad.