BIC/BCA. Berklee College of Music

The personal papers of American saxophonist, clarinetist, and educator John D. LaPorta (1920-2004), who taught at Berklee College of Music from 1959-1985. LaPorta's papers include published and unpublished compositions and arrangements, teaching materials, correspondence, clippings, programs, assorted writings, photographs, awards, and performance recordings collected by LaPorta over the course of his career as a performer and teacher.

Collection of photographs compiled by Alma Berk during her tenure as Berklee’s first publicity officer. Images document campus events, commencement, faculty, staff, students, alumni, visiting artists, and other snapshots of the College from its founding through the mid 1980s, and are the only known comprehensive photographic collection of Berklee during this time.

Multiple binders containing notes, formulas, and other figures compiled and created by Lawrence Berk, founder of Berklee College of Music, likely produced in the 1930s as a result of Berk’s private study with Joseph Schillinger, creator of the Schillinger System of Musical Composition. These papers presumably contain the foundation of Berklee’s early curriculum.

This collection consists of concert programs generated by Berklee College of Music’s Concert Operations department, known colloquially as the Concert Office. Events include student, faculty, visiting artist, and professional performances in the following five campus venues: Lawrence and Alma Berk Hall, Oliver Colvin Hall, David Friend Hall, The Red Room @ Café 939, and the Berklee Performance Center.

Pedagogical arrangements of popular music and jazz standards created and/or compiled by pianist, Berklee faculty member, and alumnus Dean Earl as teaching aids for Piano department courses in harmony and piano performance.

Materials collected and organized by Alma Berk during her tenure as Chief Public Affairs Officer (1959-1994), including press clippings and releases, photographs, institutional reports, files on faculty and students, promotional materials, college publications and curricular material, and other records documenting the college's first 50+ years.

Photographs, negatives, slides, and other promotional materials produced by or for Berklee's Communications office documenting Berklee buildings, student life, selected individuals, and campus events from the late 1990s to early 2000s.

Approximately 3,900 video recordings of Berklee clinics, concerts, and other special campus events spanning 1979-2005 (primarily 1985-2004) recorded by the Berklee College of Music Video Services office.

This collection contains 700 audio reels created and/or collected by the Music Production and Engineering (MP&E) department at Berklee College of Music. Recordings include faculty and student projects, visiting artist clinics, master classes, lectures, annual commencement concerts and ceremonies, selected and student performances.