Lawrence Berk

Lawrence Berk (December 1908–December 22, 1995) was the founder of Berklee College of Music, a pianist, composer and arranger, and educator.

Berk oversaw the growth of the modest Schillinger House music school into the Berklee College of Music, the largest independent school of music in the world. Between founding Schillinger House in 1945 and his retirement from Berklee College of Music in 1978, his entrepreneurial and music-industry savvy enabled the school’s curriculum to keep place with popular music trends, developments in electronic music, and advancements in recording technology. He highly valued the practical application of classroom instruction, yet he guided the development of the curriculum to enable the school to become an accredited, degree-granting institution.

Early life and career

Raised in Boston’s West End, Berk began playing professionally as a pianist at the age of 13 in dance orchestras led by Ruby Newman, Meyer Davis, and Joe Rines. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in architectural engineering in 1932. With few engineering jobs available during the Great Depression, he moved to New York City, where he became a staff arranger at NBC and studied with music theorist and teacher, Joseph Schillinger. During World War II, he returned to Boston to work as a mechanical engineer at Raytheon.