Berta Rojas

"I am honored to be part of the largest and most stylistically diverse guitar department in the world as its first Latin-American classical guitar faculty member. A Berklee teacher once said that if you ask for a glass of water, the school will open a fire truck faucet and put it right in front of you. That's how intense this experience is. In a way, Berklee is a melting pot of what a student will find out there in the real world of music, and it prepares them to make a living and succeed at it."

"Berklee is all about creativity, diversity, and most of all, respect for the music that comes straight from the student's heart. Whether it is jazz, pop, or classical, the aim at Berklee is that the student will find his/her own personality as an artist and what is as unique to them as their fingerprints."

"I was always intrigued about why the classical guitarist was, in most cases, the person who remained quiet in a jam session, or why a jazz player wouldn't concentrate on dynamics, phrasing, or articulation as much as a classical player would. Or why is it that they both, classical and jazz players, commonly fail miserably when trying to play the simplest folk tune that Atahualpa Yupanqui could have blithely tossed out. At Berklee, I would like to work on the concept of a universal guitarist, able to navigate different styles while at the same time building his/her strengths as a classical artist."

"I am hoping my classical guitar students will come to have the musical resources to never have to be quiet, to always be deeply in touch with their strengths, feeling validated to embark on this creative process of finding their own voices and traverse with confidence any direction music takes them."