Michael Farquharson

Professor
mfarquharson@berklee.edu
Telephone
617-747-8394

For media inquiries, please contact Media Relations

Career Highlights
  • Jazz Inspiration/MCA recording artist with three solo albums
  • Performance credits include numerous jingle, film, TV, and album sessions as well as extensive live performances
  • Numerous production and engineering credits in all idioms
  • Regular contributor to Canadian Musician magazine
  • Former professor, Humber College
  • Author of Writers Production Handbook (Berklee Press)
Awards
  • Recipient of two Canada Council Arts awards
  • Ontario Arts Council award
  • Professional Writing Division Curriculum Development Award (1998)
  • Juno nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album (1993)
In Their Own Words

"Because the music business is such a tough business, my teaching style tends to emulate that reality. I am the client and the students are the musicians I have 'hired.' My goal is to bring out the absolute best that they can do and not settle for mediocrity."

"The classes that I teach are at the very end of the contemporary writing and production major, so I see graduating students. I tell them, 'In several weeks, you'll be out there, starting your careers. If you're writing film scores, your competition is John Williams, not the person sitting beside you in class."

"Berklee is a practical music school, for people aspiring to make a living from music. I like to think of us all as journeymen. These are the people working hard every day, under the radar—all the people creating the music we hear on the various broadcast media, all the great writer/producers, the great engineers."

"For musicians, stylistic diversity is very important. The most successful freelance musicians can go from playing a theater show to doing weddings, to going into a recording studio, to engineering tracks, to getting writing gigs, to making their own records…. I want my students leaving Berklee with these trump cards in their back pockets."