Berklee’s New Residence & Performance Tower: Music to Boston’s Ears

The building’s new studios enable the college to have space for extended teaching tracks, such as dubbing/film mixing and orchestral recording/composition/scoring

Storyk, who is also a visiting professor at Berklee, says that while many of the rooms contain similar equipment, they were crafted to hold classes and to have their own signature.

“They’re teaching rooms, but each one has a slightly different flavor,” he says.

The fourth floor includes ensemble rooms and individual practice rooms for student rehearsals. The floors above contain student dorm rooms, and a fitness center.

Storyk says the “coolest” room in the building is the cafeteria, due to its dual purpose design.

“It depends on who you talk to,” he says. “Some people think it’s a cafeteria and, “oh, by the way we play,” and then some people think it’s a performance hall, “oh, by the way we eat.”

Berklee’s Building Goals

With the building opening its doors to students about a month ago, Storyk says the college wanted to accomplish a small handful of goals.

To start, he says Berklee “had to expand.”

“There was a shortage of practice rooms and we needed new studios,” he says. “We had studios, but not at this building.”

Storyk also says the college wanted to create an updated, contemporary space for its students, faculty and staff, especially with the new cafeteria/performance room.

“The old [cafe] space was terrible,” he says. “We [now built] a first class student cafe with a real ability to perform. The cafe has incredible sound.”