Bernardo Hernandez

Professor
bhernandez@berklee.edu
Telephone
617-747-8321

For media inquiries, please contact Media Relations

Career Highlights
  • Performances with Soledad Bravo, Vicky Carr, Chekeré, Tito Gomez, Humano, Antonio Lauro, Israel Lopez, Victor Mendoza, Pablo Milanes, Dan Moretti, the Pampero Studio Orchestra, the Pan-American and Palladium 51 big bands, Los Pleneros del Coco, Tito Puente Jr., Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez, Oscar Stagnaro, Cecilia Todd, Bebo Valdez, Roberto Vizcaino, and Nancy Wilson
  • Composer, arranger, and producer of music for Radio Caracas TV musicals, WCVB Boston talk show Aqui, jingles, and arrangements for singers and orchestras in Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Spain, Mexico, and the U.S.
  • Recordings as a leader for CBS and Polydor
Awards
  • Boston Foundation 2018 Live Arts Boston (LAB) award
In Their Own Words

"Learning to write music involves both the 'school approach' and the 'street approach'—just talking to people you're working with. I was influenced by teachers who were excellent writers and at the same time great musicians, and I was always asking them a lot of questions."

"Writing music and teaching complement each other. I need to focus on my teaching duties, but at the same time I have to keep producing in order to bring new ideas into the classroom. I like to bring my work in progress into the class. Also, I've got a few good friends who come to my class every time they're playing in town. Or they send me arrangements or compositions that sometimes I bring to class because I think they will be interesting to share with students."

"I encourage my students to do their homework as though they are going to use it as a professional somehow, somewhere. You never know. I show my students examples of assignments I did when I was a student that I still use. When I get ideas, I go back to my archives, and I can often put together whole songs very quickly."

"Just recently I went to the studio to record my ensemble. A former student I haven't seen in years, who's now a recording engineer, was doing my recording session. And she was using in the session all the information she remembered from my classes. Things like that—that's the beauty of this job."