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HMTM students visit Berklee

HMTM students visit Berklee

22. May ’25

In November 2024, the 15th International Jazz Workshop at the Jazz Institute of our university established the new partnership between the Jazz Institute and the renowned Berklee Global Jazz Institute (BGJI) in Boston, USA. As part of this partnership, a mutual exchange will now take place every year: In November 2024, a delegation from Boston was in Munich, and now the return visit has taken place.

A personal report from our students Adél Kövecs, Jakob Marsmann, Susi Lotter, Khasar Ganbaatar and Marie Kuhar about their trip to Boston:

We recently had the pleasure of being part of a long-planned first exchange between students from the Jazz Institute of HMTM and the Berklee Global Jazz Institute! Five of us traveled with Henning Sieverts and his family to Boston in the USA, after the Berklee students had visited us in Munich in November. We all got on really well from day one in the fall, enjoyed our rehearsal time together and played a wonderful concert in Saal X. That’s why we were looking forward to our stay in the USA all the more. We received a very warm welcome and met everyone again at an American brunch before the very intensive time at Berklee College of Music began.

We had our own personal schedule for a week and were able to attend very different courses, have our own lessons and experience everyday life at the Global Jazz Institute. In between, we rehearsed, refreshed old repertoire and worked on new pieces to prepare for the performance in Boston. It was very special for us that we were immediately accepted into the circle of all Global Master’s students. Not only was our »exchange ensemble« there for us, but all the students at the institute in Boston took time for us and got to know us. The exchange that resulted was and is an incredibly valuable experience for us! Learning from George Garzone, John Patitucci, Patricia Perez, Daniel Babai, Chase Morrin and especially Danilo Perez was incredibly enriching. We were impressed by the challenging, motivating and supportive spirit that prevails at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute. Although Gregory Groover, the main organizational contact person, was mainly out of town during our stay, we felt very well looked after. We are very grateful to him and especially to Alexandra Zapata and Brian Urra for everything they made possible for us there.

At the end of our time in Boston, we visited the Museum of Fine Arts together and enjoyed art/cultural input in a completely different way. In addition to the very intensive work, there was also time to jam with the students there, hang out, attend concerts and make friends. We hope that our time in Boston is just the beginning of a great future for HMTM and BGJI together, one that is all about learning together and from each other and taking on different perspectives. With everything that is happening right now, we have experienced the power of music to bring people together. Thanks to Camilo Dornier, Claus Reichstaller, Martin Zenker and Henning Sieverts for making this possible!

Adél, Jakob, Susi, Khasar and Marie

About the Berklee Global Jazz Institute:

The Berklee Global Jazz Institute (BGJI) is a performance program within the Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA, designed to foster creativity and musicality through a variety of musical disciplines. The BGJI provides a comprehensive environment for contemporary jazz where students can develop their creativity at the highest level and learn to contribute music as an important part of society.

The founder and artistic director is the pianist and composer Danilo Pérez. The Grammy-winning pianist and composer is one of the most influential and dynamic musicians of our time. In just over a decade, his distinctive blend of pan-American jazz, encompassing the music of America, folk and world music, has won critical acclaim and a loyal audience.

About the Jazz Institute of the HMTM:

The Jazz Institute at the University of Music and Theatre Munich can look back on more than 30 years of academic training for talented jazz musicians. Founded in the late 1980s at Munich’s Richard Strauss Conservatory (RSK) at the Gasteig under the direction of jazz musician and Berklee graduate Kurt Maas, it developed into a centre for successful jazz education in Germany under the direction of jazz trumpeter Prof. Claus Reichstaller. Since 2008, the Jazz Institute has been part of the HMTM, the largest state university of the arts in Bavaria. Today, around 80 students from around 20 different countries study at the HMTM’s Jazz Institute.

At the centre of the Munich jazz education is a balanced relationship between experiment and tradition, practice and theory as well as numerous performance and cooperation opportunities, for example with the Munich jazz club Unterfahrt, the nightclub in the Hotel Bayerischer Hof or the Munich club Milla. In addition to university concerts and regular international workshops, the Kurt Maas Jazz Award plays a central role in the programme and is awarded to students of the Jazz Institute every two years. Since October 2022, classes in Munich have been held in premises at Gasteig HP8.