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.
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