Berklee Today Spring 2026

The Spring 2026 issue of Berklee Today, Berklee’s alumni magazine, featuring Arooj Aftab on the cover.

Berklee Today SPRING 2026

AROOJ AFTAB BM ’10 EXPLORES THE JUXTAPOSITION OF GRIEF AND JOY, DARK AND LIGHT, IN HER DISTINCTIVE SOUND. Night Vision

DEPARTMENTS

10 Night Vision Arooj Aftab explores the juxtaposition of grief and joy, dark and light, in her distinctive sound. BY JOHN MIRISOLA 16 Heat Wave Inside Miami’s sizzling, boundary-blurring Latin music scene. BY RICARDO HERRERA BANDRICH 22 It’s a Vibe Understanding the business and art of genre-bending in 2025. BY BRYAN PARYS 28 Time Travel As Berklee on the Road programs in Puerto Rico and Italy mark decades-long anniversaries, we journey into the past and step into the future. BY COLETTE GREENSTEIN AND JOHN MIRISOLA 34 Turning Passion into Plan A Professional Education Division Dean Lenora Helm Hammonds has seen the industry from all sides. Now she's bringing it all back to Berklee. BY MARK SMALL '75

04 Beat

ALL THE BERKLEE NEWS THAT FITS

38 Pulse NEWS FROM OUR ALUMNI COMMUNITY Alum Notes 40

ALUMNI PROFILES Jonathon Heyward 43 BY SARAH GODCHER MURPHY Mei Semones 44 BY BRYAN PARYS Final Cadence 47

48 Finale BY KELLY DAVIDSON

Every great thing that I had at Berklee, you all have now— and maybe even more.

On the cover: Arooj Aftab, photographed by Kelly Davidson. Opposite: Charlie Puth BM ’13 and Prince Charles Alexander at the BPC for Career Jam 2025. Photograph by Dave Green.

- CHARLIE PUTH BM ’13 (SEE PAGE 6)

Berklee Today | Spring 2026 A PUBLICATION OF THE COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING DIVISION

John Mirisola Tara Bellucci Nick Balkin, Ricardo Herrera Bandrich, Tara Bellucci, Tori Donahue, Colette Greenstein, John Mirisola, Sarah Godcher Murphy, Bryan Parys, Mark Small Min Lee Vanessa Rossi Kelly Davidson Jack Flann Nick Balkin, Joseph Dreeszen, Ed Lewis, Claire Machamer

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

DIRECTOR

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

LEAD DESIGN

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

CONTRIBUTING ARTIST

EXECUTIVE OVERSIGHT

As the alumni-oriented magazine of Berklee College of Music, Berklee Today is dedicated to informing, enriching, and serving the extended Berklee community. By sharing information about college matters, music industry issues and events, alumni activities and accomplishments, and musical topics of interest, Berklee Today serves as a valuable forum for our family throughout the world and a source of commentary on contemporary music. Berklee Today (ISSN 1052-3839) is published once a year by Berklee’s Communications and Marketing Division, 1140 Boylston St. Boston, MA 02215-3693. All contents © 2026 by Berklee College of Music. Alum Notes and address updates may be submitted to berklee.edu/alumni/forms/alumni-updates. Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608. Canada returns should be sent to IMEX Global Solutions, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2, Canada. Visit us at berklee.edu/berklee-today

Letter from the President Jim Lucchese

Dear Berklee alumni, Welcome to this issue of Berklee Today . I want to thank everyone for being so welcoming and supportive as I’ve settled into this role over the past year. I really appreciated the feedback you shared last spring through the listening sessions. I was lucky to hear from more than a thousand members of the Berklee community, and these insights informed Berklee’s strategic direction, which we’ve turned into an action plan. One opportunity came through loud and clear in those conversations: lifting up our 85,000 alumni—the world’s largest and most accomplished community of artists and creators. And you’ll see evidence of this across this issue. Arooj Aftab’s ambitious musical vision, Jonathon Heyward breaking barriers at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Martina Verano’s A&R approach in an age of genre fluidity—all these stories, and so many more, reveal the impact our alumni are having across the industry at this very moment. This is why one of the top priorities in the strategic plan is setting a new standard for alumni support. Toward that goal, we are planning a number of opportunities for meaningful alumni engagement this year, culminating on Saturday, September 19, with our first-ever Berklee Homecoming, a community-centered block party taking place opposite Fenway Park. Highlighting Berklee’s role as the musical heartbeat of Boston, Homecoming will showcase the exceptional talent of alumni, students, and faculty with a diverse mix of performances. We hope you will join us for this special event bringing Berklee together around unique artistry, collaboration, and community. Additional details about Homecoming can be found via the QR code below. We’re also working to rebuild and expand Berklee Connect to provide more ongoing career support and make it easier for you to connect with fellow alumni. Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey and shared ideas about features and key elements we should build. As always, your input has been invaluable. Sincerely, Jim Lucchese President

Beat all the berklee news that fits

Debo Ray, assistant professor of voice, performs at the Inauguration of President Jim Lucchese at the Berklee Performance Center.

CHARLIE PUTH AND LUIS ÁLVAREZ RECEIVE ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

BY TARA BELLUCCI

Berklee presented its 2025 Alumni Achievement Awards to Charlie Puth BM ’13 and Luis Álvarez BM ’83 at separate events held in Boston and Puerto Rico. A Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, and producer, Puth was honored at Career Jam in April, where he served as the event’s keynote speaker. Reflecting on his time as a student, Puth told the 1,000+ crowd gathered at the Berklee Performance Center, “Every great thing that I had at Berklee, you all have now—and maybe even more.” Puth shot to stardom in 2015 with “See You Again,” his collaboration with Wiz Khalifa for Furious 7 , which earned multiple Grammy nominations and became one of the best-selling singles of all time. He followed that success with a string of global hits including “Attention,” “We Don’t Talk Anymore,” and “Light Switch,” and has released several acclaimed albums, including Nine Track Mind , Voicenotes , and Charlie .

Known for his precise musicianship and hands-on approach to production—which he demonstrates to over 40 million followers on TikTok and Instagram—Puth has also written and produced songs for artists such as Selena Gomez, Maroon 5, and Justin Bieber. In February 2026, he performed the national anthem at Super Bowl LX. Álvarez was honored in June at a concert celebrating the 30th anniversary of Berklee in Puerto Rico, a program he cofounded in 1995 that has since served more than 4,000 students. An entrepreneur and music advocate, Álvarez served as vice president of Méndez & Company Inc., a major family-owned food and beverage company based in Puerto Rico. Under his lead- ership, the company established the Puerto Rico Heineken Jazz Fest in 1990, with Álvarez produc- ing the event and helping grow it into one of the island’s most prominent music festivals. A long- time supporter of arts education, he is a former member of Berklee’s Board of Trustees and current vice chair of the Berklee Valencia Advisory Board, helping to strengthen ties between the institution, Puerto Rico, and the Spanish-speaking world. The Alumni Achievement Awards are given annually, with past recipients including Ramin Djawadi BM ’98, Pinar Toprak BM ’00, and Court- ney Harrell ’01. The awards are a celebration of alumni success, recognizing great talent, creativity, and those who have made a positive impact on professional careers and the music community. 

BEAT

LEE BERK’S LEGACY CAPTURED IN NEW BIOGRAPHY

BY NICK BALKIN

As Berklee’s second president, Lee Berk guided the college’s rise into the world’s leading institu- tion for contemporary music. His story is told in Lee Berk: Leading the Berklee Way, a new Berklee Press biography by Mark Small, who spoke about the book and Berk’s legacy to a packed room of alumni, colleagues, and friends at the Stan Getz Library last summer. Small, who was Berklee Today ’s managing editor for 26 years, collaborated on the project with Lee’s wife, Susan Berk. He described the book as “a cross between a biography of Lee and a history of the college,” weaving together Berk’s personal story with the institution’s rapid expansion and curricular innovation. Quiet and humble by nature, Berk was “not one to toot his own horn,” Small said. But the impact of his presidency was unmistakable, as he oversaw the launch of new majors in film scoring, music produc - tion and engineering, music business, songwriting, and music therapy, to name just a few of his accom- plishments. Colleagues remembered Berk as a leader who listened closely and trusted people to rise to challenges. Small recalled how vibraphonist Gary Burton—later Berklee’s executive vice president— initially resisted Lee’s encouragement to apply as dean of curriculum, insisting he wasn’t qualified, but eventually took the role and assisted Berk in shaping decades of academic innovation. “Lee had a way of knowing who was right for the job, even when they weren’t sure themselves,” Small said.

Though she could not attend in person, Susan Berk sent remarks from Phoenix. She noted that while Lee might have balked at the idea of a book about him, “after reading it . . . he would’ve given me one of his beautiful smiles and told me that he loved it.” Small has continued sharing the book—including events in Santa Fe and Phoenix, where Lee and Susan lived after his retirement—extending the celebration of Berk’s visionary leadership and the sense of family they wove into Berklee’s culture. 

BEAT

BERKLEE INAUGURATES PRESIDENT JIM LUCCHESE

BY TORI DONAHUE

Berklee marked a new era of its leadership on Thurs- day, October 30, 2025, inaugurating Jim Lucchese as the institution’s fifth president. Held at the Berklee Performance Center, the event brought together students, faculty, alumni, and campus leaders for a program celebrating creativity, con- nection, and the role of music in shaping the future. In his remarks, Lucchese affirmed Berklee’s commitment to listening to its students, learning from their creativity, and keeping its focus fixed on what’s next. He also expressed gratitude for the support he has received during his presidency so far. “I’m thankful to have found a home here,” he said. “A home that makes a place and space for such a diverse range of exceptional people, all trying to keep creativity at the center of their life in one way or another. I’m grateful to be a part of that.” Lucchese went on to highlight Berklee’s dis- tinctive role in higher education, underscoring vocation as a shared value among students, faculty, and alumni. He noted that while many institutions frame vocation as something students must dis- cover, Berklee draws those for whom creative work is already a calling. “If you're here, that’s not a problem. If you’re here, it found you. You’re pur- suing your art because you have to, and it creates a special connection. Our faculty see that calling in our students, and our students see themselves in their teachers.”

He also reflected on the power of music to restore and uplift, citing research that shows how music can support recovery for people living with stroke-related conditions or dementia. In a deeply divided world, he emphasized, music plays a vital role in fostering empathy and human connection. “That’s our students’ gift: the ability to heal and bring people together,” he said. Lucchese concluded by outlining three stra- tegic pillars that will shape Berklee’s future: afford- ability, careers, and sustainability. Acknowledging the challenges facing creative industries, from technological disruption to economic uncertainty, he struck an optimistic tone about Berklee’s role in helping students navigate what comes next. The ceremony also included remarks from campus leaders and performances by students, faculty, and alumni. Highlights included a per- formance by the boundary-pushing jazz trio the Fringe and a student-led medley dedicated to Lucchese’s eclectic musical taste, featuring music ranging from Jimi Hendrix and the Roots to Prince and Claude Debussy. The program concluded with a high-octane trio of Tower of Power songs performed by the Berklee Inauguration All-Star Band, with Lucchese on drums. 

BEAT

BERKLEE AWARDS HONORARY DOCTORATE TO BOB DYLAN

BY NICK BALKIN

In November 2025, Berklee College of Music awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree to Bob Dylan, recognizing a lifetime of songwriting that changed the sound and scope of modern music. For more than six decades, Dylan has drawn from folk, blues, gospel, country, and rock to create a body of work that captures both the American story and the inner life of the people living it. Through his writing, he showed that a song could tell the truth with the economy of a poem and the reach of a novel, influencing generations of artists who still look to his work as a map for what’s possible. “Thank you, Berklee College of Music, for bestowing on me this prestigious honor. What a pleasant surprise,” Dylan said. “Who knows what path my career might have taken if I’d been fortunate enough to learn from some of the great musicians who taught at Berklee. It’s something to think about.” In presenting the honor, Berklee recognized not only Dylan’s extraordinary influence on modern music but also his lifelong commitment to creative

exploration. “This is an incredible moment for this institution," said Berklee President Jim Lucchese. “Bob Dylan’s music has shaped how the world hears itself. He’s an artist who has never stopped evolv- ing, who keeps chasing truth through sound and language. That’s the spirit we try to cultivate here every day. Honoring him feels like a reaffirmation of the creative impulse that built this place.” "Bob Dylan has spent a lifetime learning, absorbing, and transforming every American song tradition, and Berklee strives to teach all the music that Dylan loves,” added Matt Glaser, artistic director of Berklee’s American Roots Music Program. “His deep immersion in African American blues parallels much of Berklee’s curriculum." Dylan joins a distinguished roster of Berklee honorary doctorate recipients that includes Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones ’51, Joni Mitchell, B.B. King, Ringo Starr, Tito Puente, Roberta Flack, A. R. Rahman, and others. 

story by John Mirisola

photography by Kelly Davidson

Vision Arooj Aftab explores the juxtaposition of grief and joy, dark and light, in her distinctive sound. Night

Arooj Aftab ‘10 was a young teenager in Lahore, Pakistan,

Aftab and I spoke during a short break between tour legs. The conversation ranged widely, from her childhood influences to her path through Berklee, the high stakes of making a living as an artist, the importance of finding the right collab - orators, and much more. Her cool confidence suf - fused every subject, as did a charming tendency to universalize parts of her story—“it’s like your first instinct to cover a song”—turning me into you, and extending deeply personal truths across divi- sions of identity, experience, style, and culture. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You’ve said you want to make music with and for everybody. Your sound is very specific and rooted in traditions that may be new to some listeners, yet it resonates widely. When you’re making music, are you thinking about your audience, or does that broader connection emerge naturally from expressing yourself? I have been asked a lot, "Who is it for and where is it coming from, and what have you studied and how did you get to this point?" The answer is always a little bit the same: it's a really personal music, and it's for everybody . . . because it's personal, because of my journey in jazz and my love for acoustic guitar, folk music, and R&B, and the blues, and growing up in Pakistan—having those melodies and those tra- ditions, even though I'm not classically trained and I couldn't tell you anything about any sort of South Asian traditional music. It's a combination of all the things that I love. And it's a very unpretentious com- bination, I hope. I strive for the music to feel natural, to feel like this is the product of somebody's broad interests who happens to be a musician. It's all of the things all at once. And like you said, it is also very specific, because it's a rare thing that hasn't exactly been executed before in this way. Which makes it really exciting. I don't make music for audi- ences. I make the music that I want to hear that I can't find anywhere. I wanted to hear this music for myself, and I couldn't find it anywhere, so I had to make it. How did growing up in Pakistan surrounded by music affect you? I grew up in a house where everybody loved music a lot, in particular, but also beauty and art, and my mom's also super into nutrition and food. They were very intentional about the things that they would do, and they would live their life in this way that prioritized listening to music and watching good TV. It wasn't about it being a luxury; it was about it being what we need. I think that happens to come from them being from a city like Lahore, which is such a romantic place, especially when they were growing up there. That’s just part of the culture from their time. And they put that into us. Me and my siblings just thought it was extremely normal to be so tuned in.

when her relationship to music started to evolve. She started imagining changing the songs she was listening to—how she might tweak the bass line or rework the melody. "It's like your first impulse to cover a song: I want to hear that in my voice," she told me. "I wanted to change the actual arrangement, which is insane for a 13-year-old to think. Sometimes it just feels like music can be your destiny, because there's no way to explain why I would feel that way. I had no tools or any training to know that's even a thing. But I innately felt that I wanted to." In the years since those early musical instincts emerged, a totally singular career has unscrolled. After beginning her music education in Pakistan through Berkleemusic.com (the precursor to Berklee Online), Aftab came to Boston to study on campus at Berklee, where she earned a degree in music pro- duction and engineering. From Berklee, she moved to New York City, and over the following decade she staked out her sound in the local scene and on two excellent albums, 2015’s acoustic-driven Bird Under Water and 2018’s ambient electronic Siren Islands. Her 2021 breakout album, Vulture Prince , earned her a Grammy Award in the Best Global Music Per- formance category for the song “Mohabbat,” which was also listed on President Barack Obama’s annual summer playlist. After Vulture Prince , Aftab signed to Verve Records, the historic Universal Music Group label home to both jazz legends and genre-defying contemporary acts. Today she stands as one of contemporary music’s most distinctive yet least definable artists. If you’ve heard any of her projects, you know the sound instantly: that voice like thick smoke weav- ing slowly upward, joining a shapeshifting cloud of acoustic textures, South Asian folk and classical tones, jazz improvisations, and minimalist electron- ics. But the resulting compositions are anything but predictable. They can be meditative and oblique, like her 2023 collaboration with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily, Love in Exile . They can also stun with their immediacy, like the alluring earworm “Raat Ki Rani,” the lead single from 2024’s Night Reign , remixed by both the jammy psych-rockers Khruangbin and indie-electronic duo Sylvan Esso. Both projects were nominated for Grammys. One of the most striking aspects of Aftab’s work is how that combination of so many hyper-specific influences can sound so much like an invitation. When I asked Christiane Karam, one of her former instructors, about this quality in Aftab’s music, she explained, “We're wired to experience anything that's not familiar as a threat, and to shy away from it. This is why successful fusion artists are just mirac- ulous, because what they're doing is they're making the unfamiliar familiar enough that we're willing to lend an ear.”

"Berklee unlocked the language that I needed to communicate with myself, my own ideas, and the world of music inside of my head."

It sounds like the irrational confidence has served you well. The stakes are so high, you can't afford to be mediocre at the thing that you want to do. You have to do some- thing really incredible. You have to be very serious. What are the lessons from Berklee that still stick with you? Berklee unlocked the language that I needed to communicate with myself, my own ideas, and the world of music inside of my head. It allowed me to put my hands on physical things and put my voice in the right places to really get it out of my body. And just incredible moments, also. That's where I met Jamey Haddad [’73]. That's where I met espe- ranza spalding [BM ’05 ’18H]. That's where I ran into Meshell Ndegeocello in a hallway. Our [opening] concert was Lalah Hathaway [’90 ’22H]. That's where I shook Zakir Hussain's [’19H] hand, because I knew the back door of the BPC. There's so many of these moments that happened at Berklee that unlocked this musicianship and this excitement for music. All these moments and all these people that I met—these were also teaching/mentorship moments, to be like, "Oh my God, I can do this." This is a thing, this is a lifestyle, this is a community. How did you know you wanted to produce as well as perform? I wanted to have the power, and the control, and the knowledge, because the worst thing ever is to just be the female singer in the room, and it's just, like, dude-broing all over the place, and you don't really know how to articulate what you want. That for me is the biggest heart-sinking anxiety moment. And it would happen a lot, because the patriarchy is alive and well, especially in music, even today. And I am a nerd. I like to plug things in, and I like to fiddle with knobs, and I like to play video games. . . . So that interest was already there. At some point I was just like, "Can you please get out of my way so that I can just set this up the way I want to and be able to hear the things the way I want to hear them?" You also worked on an Emmy-winning documen- tary. How did you get into film editing work, and what did you learn from that part of your career? If you know audio software, switching to a video software is very easy, 'cause it's all kind of the same thing. . . . So if you, on top of that, have a good sense of rhythm, because you come from a music background, then you can become a really great video editor. . . . That's what happened to me. When I moved to New York, all the recording studios were closing. . . . All the video content was moving online, so there was so much work in these post-production houses to edit these videos, edit documentary films.

"I make the music that I want to hear that I can't find anywhere."

AROOJ AFTAB PERFORMS AT ROUNDHOUSE IN LONDON. Photo by Patrick Gunning

Can you talk about your journey from Berklee Online to Berklee's campus in Boston? I finished high school, and then really wanted to study music . . . [but] there was a bit of confusion around: What is an education in music? What does it mean? What does a contemporary education look like? I was really into production and engi- neering as well. I had not studied music theory. I didn't even have piano lessons. And then I saw the Berklee curriculum and I was like, well this is definitely the place. They have all the things that I want to learn. But . . . I couldn't pay the tuition. It's mirac- ulous when I think about it. I said, "Let me apply to this." And simultaneously, [Berklee Online] had just put out this small scholarship program. I applied to it and I got that. Then I was able to take five courses—that gave me a year to study music theory and Keyboard 101 and just gain a little bit of a base, and to understand what this even is—organized music education, and a bachelor's degree, and this opportunity to meet musicians from all over the world, and to study jazz [and] the history of music. To pursue music in a place that has the infrastructure for it.

And then also, because of the recession, they were like, "Wait, she can also clean up the audio. She can also score the film. She can also edit the video. This person is three people in one." So I was getting those gigs and was getting pretty good. That was my day job all the way up until the pandemic. . . . That is because of the fact that I have a degree in MP&E, most likely. The skills came in handy. And yeah, I worked on this documentary and it won an Emmy, and so they also sent me a plaque. You've worked with so many incredible artists over the years. How do you go about choosing the right people for a project? I think there's a level of trust and love that needs to be expressed as part of the project. The level of playing [also] has to be at a certain place. I view my collaborators not as the instrument player. . . . I view them kind of like these musicians who have tran- scended their instrument and have a really strong personality of their own in the instrument. So, that's just not a harp player—that's Maeve Gilchrist [BM ’07]. Or that's Joel Ross. You can hear somebody who has really worked on their craft and has transcended the instrument and made it an extension of themselves. Grief and joy sit right next to each other in your music. Vulture Prince felt like a meditation on loss [Aftab lost her brother in 2018], and Love in Exile spends a lot of time in this doomy, ambient space. But with Night Reign , it’s not that you’ve left those textures behind—it’s more like you’re asking what else they can hold. There’s a playfulness, a mystery, and even a kind of joy. How you think about that relationship between darkness and light in your work—between grief and joy? They definitely go hand in hand. It's been a personal journey of mine to experience the loss of that magni- tude—where you're like, "Oh my God, something like that could never happen to me," and then it happens, and you're like, "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my life. What am I supposed to do now?" You start to molecularly rearrange yourself. So many things are tied to who you are, and one of the most important things that's tied to who you are in the moment is music, as a musician. So for me, I had really no way out. I had to channel it into music or lose music to it. This sound that I was creating was also simultane- ously happening, and I had spent so much time trying to put it together with the right musicians, teaching and training them to play this new sound. And then grief and loss started to channel into it as well. Then, [with] Night Reign, I started to feel . . . that I want to absorb this loss as a real thing, as a life event, and I also want to celebrate this person's life, and my story is going to keep going. I want to be happy again, and I want to be joyous again. I think that that is the natural way that things are supposed to go. Celebrate the life that already was there,

and then continue to bring joy into your own, and . . . keep the music really close to how your heart is feeling. Let it be natural. I really like what you said: It's not like we departed from the textures that I cre- ated in Vulture Prince. It's just that I evolved them. Over the past few years, so many new audiences have gotten excited about what you're doing. What has that experience felt like for you? It's like: finally guys! I've been trying to show you this thing, and I've been saying like, "Come on, look. It's really cool." Finally it feels like everybody's down, and they get it. And I'm having to explain it less and less. I had gotten to a point in my career before Vulture Prince where I was like, I'm just gonna be making this really intricate, beautiful music and no one's gonna care. Then I was proven very wrong, and it restored my faith in listenership. We're told over and over again by capitalist music industry: They're not gonna wanna listen. The songs have to be three minutes long. We're talking about listeners as if they're absolute idiots. And that's always felt a little strange to me. I think we can grow an audience that likes different things. You don't have to appeal to a lowest common denom- inator in order for people to get into your music. Yeah. Or that they would be intimidated by it, or that they would feel alienated if it's in a language they don't understand. None of that has been true. My audience keeps growing, and everybody keeps loving it. It's being seen as just a really great contemporary style of music that is familiar, but also new and refreshing. That's exactly what I've wanted. And it's people from all ranges. It's really young people. It's the old jazz heads. It's Brown people, Black people, White people. Everybody is digging it and coming together in these rooms. And that's also so awesome to see. Sometimes people are very formal and they're sitting really qui- etly. Sometimes we're all screaming and jumping and shouting. There's so many forms that the music ends up taking. Your musical tastes seem completely omnivorous. Where are you finding inspiration these days, and do you have a sense of what's next for you musically? I keep going in between, like, really hard-hitting con- temporary flamenco stuff—not for what I want to do, but what makes me feel excited. The algorithm is just feeding it to me, and I don't mind at all, because I had no idea that there was this whole subgenre. But Rosalía's probably the reason why all of that's happening now. And then I also feel like returning to my teenage self, where I'm again loving really soft acoustic guitar songs. I don't think either of those are a good idea for my next album, but we'll see. One of my processes when I'm writing is to try to not listen to too much music, so that my unicorn horn can grow all the way out, and then it can tell me what we're doing. 

heat wave Inside Miami’s sizzling, boundary-blurring Latin music scene.

story by Ricardo Herrera Bandrich cover photo by Stella Levi

“Mayami, mijo,” a Cuban lady says. The 305, reads a guy’s cap. Out the window we see waves lapping against white sands. Then, further west, massive street murals. South of that, the Freedom Tower, where my grandparents, my mother, and count - less other exiled Cubans first received help when they arrived in this country. Directly across is the Kaseya Center. Rubén Blades ’06H was there in May, cantando con alma de barrio, chatting about his Gabriel García Márquez-inspired album and how he’d tried convincing “Gabo” to cowrite it. Oh look: gators sunbathing on a golf course. Our plane lands. And there’s clapping! Join in. It’s music. Down there: that’s Miami.

Before Grammy winner Tommy Torres BM ’93 was releasing chart-topping hits as a solo artist and producing for the likes of Ricky Martin, Jesse & Joy, and Alejandro Sanz ’13H, he was an assistant engineer for Sony in New York, watching sessions with Michael Jackson and Nirvana. But he hadn’t been promoted in years, so he started making demos in those same studios at night and sending them everywhere. One day, demo in hand, he snuck into the office of fabled A&R VP Tomás Muñoz, who was on the phone saying that Ricky Martin shouldn’t thank his grandmother in his album Vuelve because it went against the “international, seductive man” they were portraying. Basically, “James Bond would never do that,” laughs Torres. Muñoz kept his demo and said, “No more intrusions.” Some time later, he said it was clear that music was Torres’s calling and he’d have a career in it. “But why are you here?” Muñoz said. “I’m the only one working in Spanish and I’m retiring. Move to Miami.” Two months later, Torres was driving a U-Haul with his girlfriend. He says: “The guy couldn’t have been more right.”

Miami-Dade is the country’s only county where most residents are immigrants. Spanish is king and an ear for accents is queen. Un cubano is a sandwich, a coffee, and a Cuban man. The nightlife’s intense but not all flash and velvet ropes. Wildlife abounds; tourists, too. Home for many locals is still beyond the sea. Even so, for sing- er-songwriter Nicolle Horbath BM ’22, “Miami feels very close to Barranquilla, and feeling rooted helps inspire me.” In 2024, her Latin Grammy nomination for Best New Artist was announced here by fellow Colombian Juanes. Miami’s less a US city, more a tropical meeting place for Latin America. And for decades it’s been a prominent global hub for Latin music, though partly thanks to digital media, artists no longer feel obligated to record their breakout album here. Many whose music is produced and managed in Miami live abroad, working here occasionally, if at all. Still, the city’s home to numerous studios, labels, producers, songwriters, artists, and icons (like Gloria and Emilio Estefan ’07H). And, in recent years, Berklee alumni have become increasingly vital to that mix. EDM, hip-hop, jazz, and others are smaller yet notable parts of the industry (160,000 attended last year’s Ultra Music Festival, and the city’s a magnet for DJs worldwide). It’s tough to pin down Miami. But at its core, it’s a vibrant concoction as porous as its limestone foundation, absorbing all the sazón, sounds, and stories touching its shores. Explosion, fever, craze! You’ll often hear those words describing Latin music’s popularity, as if it’s a sudden, singular phenomenon. But the category covers a sweeping range of music from many countries, so different time periods mean different mainstream sounds. And Latin music’s global popularity has ebbed and flowed for over a century, starting with tango in Europe, then rumba and other Cuban styles creating hits featured in Hollywood’s early sound films. Fast-forward through various swells of salsa, Latin pop, regional Mexican, rock en español, and many others, and you reach this century’s first global wave. Actually, it really kicked off in 1998, with Ricky Martin’s thrilling “La Copa de la Vida” performance at the World Cup Final in France—over a billion watched—followed by another rendition at the ’99 Grammys, the elaborate production getting a standing ovation. Torres arrived in Miami in 1999, and it wasn’t long before he was producing multi-platinum artist Ednita Nazario, who recommended him to Martin. His career boomed afterward, earning multiple accolades, including a Berklee Alumni Achievement Award in 2023. Two decades on, Torres says that if, in the afterlife, he could show his work to “John Lennon and other artists . . . I’d

Palm trees swaying in front of the miami skyline. photo by Michael Russell

“ I haven’t seen a place Latin music is not touching.” Rodney Alejandro BM ’97

choose some of my own music, though it’d be easier to share what I did for Ricky”—especially the MTV Unplugged album. The 2006 record was hard to mess up given Martin’s amazing repertoire, Torres explains. But his arrangements helped show “a Ricky we hadn’t seen” on stage: spontaneous, relaxed, with no choreography or intricate production. And in a pioneering concept, Torres suggested featuring native Puerto Rican instruments and music, espe- cially in “Tu Recuerdo” and “Pégate,” new songs he produced and cowrote. Now when he hears the cuatro playing around the world and people singing those songs, he proudly feels he “fulfilled the musical and the cultural, patriotic part” of being an artist. Several years after “Gasolina” was released, I was in a club in Shanghai when suddenly the song’s revving intro took over, and everyone was dancing to what my friends and I’d been partying to for years back home in Puerto Rico: reggaetón. I took in the scene, full of goosebumps. I didn’t expect a generation of reggaetón superstars—most already known in PR—would follow, redefining mainstream Latin music. More surprising was that 13 years after “Gasolina,” Daddy Yankee struck again with an even

bigger song, Luis Fonsi’s soulful voice taking the lead while the Puerto Rican cuatro played throughout. As the whole planet knows, “Despacito” was a monster hit. The video is YouTube’s second-most- watched ever. Even covers in countless languages went viral. The song (and what followed) gave Latin music so much extra fuel that “it feels like the up and down is over,” says producer and engineer Carlos Perez de Anda BM ’14. Globally, “Latin music is here to stay.” In 2017, US Latin music revenues jumped 37 percent, then crossed $1 billion for the first time in 2022, according to the RIAA. In 2024, recorded music revenues in Latin America rose 23 percent, reported the International Federation of the Phono- graphic Industry. Throughout Europe, artists such as Karol G, Christian Nodal, and Rosalía pack arenas. “I haven’t seen a place Latin music is not touching,” says Rodney Alejandro BM ’97, dean of professional writing and music technology at Berklee. He points to Jay Chou, one of the Chinese-speaking world’s biggest artists, adopting Latin pop in “Mojito,” and to K-pop companies launching Latin operations (e.g., HYBE). Fresh sounds are trending—like those of Peso Pluma and Elena Rose—as are collaborations with famous Asian performers—take J Balvin’s and Badshah’s trilingual “Voodoo,” and Lisa featuring

Cuban Salsa Dancers in Little Havana, Miami. photo by John Coletti

Rosalía in “New Woman.” Topping it all is mega- star Bad Bunny: Spotify’s most-streamed artist worldwide from 2020 to 2022 (and still in the top three today), who’s appeared in movies, ads, SNL , the WWE, the Met Gala—everywhere. “I’m constantly getting requests from Japan [and London] for ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca.’ All the Ricky Martin stuff from the late ’90s, they love,” says Javier Mendez BM ’08, senior manager in sync at Warner Chappell Music in Miami. “And FIFA,” the soccer gaming series, “uses lots of Latin music. It’s an amazing soundtrack everybody wants to be on.” Mendez also describes how, after learning that “Disney was making a movie about a little Mexican kid,” he sent production their best Mexican talent, and Natalia Lafourcade was picked to perform “Remember Me” in Spanish for Coco . “I was super excited. I tell them: ‘If it gets nominated, she needs to play at the Oscars.’ I don’t know if it was me that did it, but it happened [in 2018’s ceremony]. It’s one of my favorite career moments.” Drawing people from Los Angeles, New York, and abroad, Miami’s industry grew not just because of Latin music’s record numbers—it was the pandemic. “Out of nowhere there was a huge Berklee community,” says Andrés Arenas MA ’22, junior A&R manager at Warner Chappell. “The expansion was on the verge of happening,” Mendez adds, but Miami’s minimal restrictions, warm weather, and then-cheaper cost of living sped things up, “kickstarting the industry 15 years,” Perez says. Various labels here broadened their business operations, he adds, including Sony Music Latin, which also opened 5020 Studio. Interscope Miami launched too, headed by Nir Seroussi BM ’96. “Industry people from all walks of life moved here,” says Perez. Meeting by chance at a showcase, he and Mendez told their connections at Berklee about the upswing and, eventually, Miami was added to the Berklee Career Center’s slate of student industry trips. In 2017, as “Despacito” climbed the charts, Perez left LA, where he’d worked under Tony Maserati with Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and others. The move was meant to be temporary, but after quickly finding lots of opportunities and meeting his future wife, he’s still in Miami. He’s now man- ager and chief engineer of Alacran Studios, which he helped build from scratch. (Warner Chappell is a longtime client; both businesses have nearly all-Berklee teams.) Alacran opened right before lockdowns, so work came sparsely. Eventually, Luis Enrique, who Perez says “can make a record with a straw,” called with an ambitious project. The fusion-heavy album, full of unique instrumentation, was unlike anything the Prince of Salsa had done before. While 12 Latidos remains unreleased, word

of the project online helped Alacran generate serious buzz at the time. Torres also experimented during the pan- demic. For the first time, another artist-producer— Bad Bunny, no less—wanted to be his copilot. “It sounds so crazy . . . I have to do it,” Torres thought initially, their music being so different. Nevertheless, both had the same approach: zero preconceptions and let’s-play-around vibes. “I imagined myself in a band . . . where differences create interesting things.” Bad Bunny spat rhymes nonstop, then instantly spat more if Torres wasn’t convinced, writing nothing down yet remember- ing everything. And Torres, who’s always “found melodies and chords easily by ear” with any instru- ment, captured ideas on pianos, guitars, and more. Sometimes he’d adapt lyrically and musically to his coproducer’s rap phrasing. Sometimes his collaborator composed to Torres’s melodies. Everything was completed “in record time,” and the seemingly madcap venture became a joyful, creatively freeing partnership called El Playlist de Anoche . When asked what Miami needs musically, nearly everyone said more live venues, especially for smaller acts and newcomers. Of those, there’s ZeyZey, the Miami Beach Bandshell, Lagniappe, and Savage Labs, among others. But live music culture is far from ingrained, and locals prefer mainstream acts, their tastes varying otherwise, given their diversity. “Berklee performers tend to struggle here,” Arenas says, citing Pitbull as Miami’s only native, top Latin talent. Historically, this hasn’t been “a place where artists develop. They come to work, but their careers and fan bases are in other countries. Here’s where everything happens and nothing happens,” says A&R direc- tor at Warner Chappell Mariana Zawadzki, who completed a general music studies certificate from Berklee Online in 2023. Miami and Latin music, fundamentally driven by immigrants and their mobility, are also facing greater dilemmas given US policies and attitudes. “It’s unfortunate. Because while all these great things are happening, Latinos in this country feel targeted,” says Perez. However, “it’s also making us want to showcase more who we are. I feel like repression always does that.” Berklee community members in Miami are from Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Spain, Venezuela, and elsewhere, reflect - ing the industry makeup. For some, even everyday situations feel tense. As promoters, cities, and states lose money from canceled shows (some artists’ visas have been denied or revoked), Torres hopes that such significant business consequences lead to objections and shifting positions.

Still, Miami remains a crucial bridge between several markets, hosting an unparalleled variety of sounds and talent, with key insights into the dif- ferent trends and audiences across Latin America. “If you want to be a producer, or work on the Latin industry’s business side, Miami’s your place,” says Hugo Avendaño BM ’19, A&R analyst and operations manager at Warner Chappell. And Latin-Anglo divid- ing lines are increasingly blurry: Bieber, Beyoncé, and Drake guesting in Latin hits, singing in Spanish; country artists joining regional Mexican acts; Bad Bunny headlining Coachella. But barriers endure. Zawadzki says that getting a top Latin producer sessions with Anglo artists was grueling. She feels “the general market pushes to be part of what’s trending, whether it’s Latin or Afrobeats . . . but there’s still no give-and-take.” Soon, Latin and Anglo music will be equally popular worldwide, and it’s not just because main- stream Latin keeps evolving through fusion, col- laborations, and experimentation (take Residente’s self-titled 2017 album as a master class of all three). Honestly: who’s heard salsa, merengue, bachata, tango—all taught on every continent for decades—or lots of other Latin genres, and not wanted to dance? Global adoption also continues, from Japan (among many, the Tokyo Cuban Boys, active since 1949) to Senegal (Orchestra Baobab). Multicultural places like Miami, well equipped to navigate all these varied landscapes, stand to benefit.

You’re in South Beach (the beach, mijo), where Alacran’s cozy vibes help Carlos work with Shakira. Meanwhile, Javier’s upstairs playing the güiro he keeps at Warner Chappell, avoiding the evening rush hour. Then he’ll rehearse with his Latin punk band. A friend texts you about a concert at Ark for Art—Nicolle performed there in April, actually. But first: dinner. Instagram says there’s a food truck event with arepas, sushi, ceviche, akra, kosher burgers, Korean-style wings, truffle croquetas . . . yes, please! Traffic’s insane (and Art Basel hasn’t even started). A speedboat in tow nearly hits you and several people fishing from a bridge—a Florida Man story, almost. Later, “Tu Recuerdo” plays on your speakers. You remember Tommy’s feeling rock for his next project. But he’s also feeling going back to Puerto Rico’s native music and instruments. At the event, a tropical Latin funk/electropop/ something else group is on stage; their conguero has mad skills. The street artists making pop-up pieces are also killing it. All help you deal with the long lines and the mugginess, as did the free warm colada shot earlier and the cold Tripping Animals IPA in your hand. Waiting for your friends, a thousand accents and languages and colors and outfits and beautiful people and smells and flavors and melodies hit you all at once, as if in sync. 

Art Deco hotels on Miami Beach,

Florida. photo by alexander spatari

UNDERSTANDING THE BUSINESS AND ART OF GENRE-BENDING IN 2026.

KEY CHANGES: A SPECIAL SERIES TRACKING EVOLUTIONS IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

story by Bryan Parys illustrations by Jack Flann

My 14-year-old son recently told me how much he loved dancing to funk music.

This surprised me, given that his listening habits trend toward a heady brew of Kendrick Lamar, Nir- vana, and something called “The Rat Dance.” When he played me an example, to my ears it sounded like the latest iteration of trance-influenced EDM. The beat was metronomic, and there was nary a slapped bass to be heard. But he insisted that the song he was playing had come up as one of the first results in Spotify when he searched by genre category. When I looked at his tablet, the screen read: “Showing results for ‘phonk.’” Things got more confusing when I started researching phonk music, which is described as a hybrid of ’90s hip-hop styles, including trap, Mem- phis rap, and Houston chopped and screwed—with a funk twist—that gained popularity in the early 2010s. The phonk song my son played to me sounded nothing like any of that. Come to find out, phonk in 2026 is actually shorthand for “drift phonk,” an Eastern European variation on phonk, but at a faster tempo and with nearly indecipherable vocal samples. Unsurprisingly, this subgenre gained popularity on TikTok and is noted for being paired with videos about weight lifting, fighting sports, and its namesake drifting. Phonk is one of approximately 6,000 genres listed on Spotify. And this doesn’t even take into consideration the trend of major artists playing in the spaces between all those categories—Beyoncé’s “country” album, Taylor Swift’s various eras, Charli XCX’s blender-pop Brat defining the summer of 2024, to name a few. So, the question looms: Just what is genre in 2026? The Future Is Fluid According to Martina Verano MA ’20, marketing coordinator for Anti- and Epitaph Records, it’s all about genre fluidity. “That is the status quo now. I think that's what you have to do to be different. You can't just be one sound.” Ben Camp, assistant professor of songwriting, sees this fluidity as a dissolving of the boundaries that were the norm during the heyday of physical media and record stores. “[It’s] much more [open] than it used to be, where a genre was an exclusionary category. Now, it’s an inclusionary category. It's a bit more democratized in 2026 than it was.” While that openness can be liberating for artists and listeners alike, it also poses marketing challenges, particularly around selling an artist and distributing their music, as these systems are still highly depen-

dent on categorization. “Pitching, streaming—these are the reasons why you push artists into these boxes,” Verano says. “At the end of the day, you're just trying to get pitched. That's the bottom line.” Playing with Identity Samantha McKaige BM ’24 understands this strug- gle well, as she’s carved out a sound that combines Americana and folk styles with emo and pop punk. She came to Berklee as a folk artist, but the more people she met, the bigger her musical imagina- tion grew. She started experimenting with alternate guitar tunings that are common in emo and math rock styles, and those different voicings led her into new sonic territory. Since completing her degree in songwriting, she’s spent a lot of time on the road where, in addition to playing with her band as an opening act, she’s also served as touring manager. This skill flexibility has helped launch her career, and she says that “this is all I ever wanted to do while I was in school.” But securing those performances isn't always easy. “I find it hard to pitch myself because certain things really require a genre, like specific opening slots. If a musician is touring through town and I want to open, how do I market myself?” she says. Within that problem, however, lies a solution. Because she’s built a musical identity that reflects her range, she can customize her pitches based on the style of the headlining act. “I feel like I can bend to the genre of whatever I need to. I have enough in my back pocket to make that kind of my identity, whatever it needs to be.” Zwonaka Mafuna, a current double major in music business/management and music produc- tion and engineering, sees the mixing of genres as inherent in our identities. “I’m from South Africa, and I’m in America, so it's already a clash of Western and African music. But also I went to a Methodist school, so I used to listen to hymns,” he says. “Just as humans, we have so many different influences already that when you express some - thing, it's genreless.” A cinematic mix of ethereal vocals, atmo- spheric keys, and field recordings, Mafuna’s music draws inspiration from other genre-defying artists, such as Frank Ocean, Arca, and Radiohead. His style has been described as “indie pop,” but that term doesn’t capture the threads of South African amapiano and alt-R&B that weave through.

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