BOSTON (CelebrityAccess) — The campus of Boston’s Berklee College hosted more than 100 artists, entrepreneurs, and executives representing major companies from across the music and entertainment for Career Jam 2024.
Career Jam is an annual professional development event that connects students interested in a career in the entertainment industry with influential business executives and creators who are already established in the industry.
The two-day program took place April 4–5 and included master classes, mentoring sessions, auditions, and Q&A panels with musicians, performers, producers, executives, and more.
Headliners for the event this year included Billy Eilish’s songwriting collaborator and brother Finneas and singer-songwriter (and Berklee alumna) Ashe BM, who were joined by Paul Wachter, founder and CEO of Main Street Advisors. The panel, which was moderated by assistant chair of songwriting Jonathan Perkins, examined the songwriting creative process, including how they each have learned to navigate the business while continuing their development as creatives.
“I knew I wanted to make music for a living from the time I was 11 years old, and every day I recommitted to that,” said FINNEAS. “I had so many questions and I wanted so much advice. That would be my biggest advice to anybody: if you are in a room with somebody who has stories you want to hear, ask them about those stories.”
“I didn’t know what the heck I wanted to do [at Berklee]. I was the most insecure little girl of all time,” Ashe added. “I kept trying to surround myself with people who wanted the best for me as the human, not just as the artist. You don’t need to be what anyone else wants you to be, and [my people] kept feeding that into who I was.”
Other participants in the 2024 edition of Career Jam included Todd Williamson, who sat down for a keynote interview discussing K-Pop songwriting with singer-songwriter and producer August Rigo and songwriter Chik and a conversation on the world of sync featuring alumna Emily Weber BM ’97, head of synch/partner at Position Music
Additionally, Career Jam debuted the premiere of a new music video from alumnus, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Louis Cato BM ’04, leader of the house band for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
“I thought about the idea of making a visual representation of what’s happening in my brain when I’m composing a soundscape,” said Cato, explaining how he came up with the concept for the video. “There’s an interaction that happens when I’m drumming, for example, where I’m engaging in my head with what the bass player is going to be playing. So I tried to capture that visually using the technology.”
