Koyo Conservatory of Music joined the Jikei Group of Colleges in April of this year as a COM Group music school. Located in the city of Kobe, Koyo Conservatory of Music is also an official member of Boston-based Berklee College of Music’s International Network.

 

The Jikei Group of Colleges has concluded a partnership agreement between Berklee College of Music and Toyo Conservatory of Music.

 

Seiichiro Kita, Principal of the Osaka School of Music Upper Secondary Specialized Training School and General Producer for COM Group music schools, laid out the specifics of the partnership agreement at the International Affairs Meeting held at the Jikei Group’s retreat on Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. In the future, the idea of a graduate of a Jikei Group music school winning a Grammy Award will no longer be merely a dream.

 

Berklee College of Music was founded in 1945 as a comprehensive music college with a focus on jazz. The school marks its 70th anniversary this year. Many Grammy Award winners are graduates of Berklee, and the school is well-known in the music world in the United States, ranking alongside the more classically oriented Juilliard School. Japanese graduates of Berklee include Educational Advisor Mickie Yoshino, Vice-Principal Shin Ikesue, Jikei Group Vice-Principal Naoyuki Hosokawa as well as Sadao Watanabe, active around the world, and Toshiko Akiyoshi and Makoto Ozone.

 

Berklee offers programs from 12 academic departments including Composition, Contemporary Writing and Production, Film Scoring, Jazz Composition, and Music Business/Management. Berklee opened its first international campus in Valencia, Spain and delivers a suite of excellent online programs as well. Approximately 4,400 students study at Berklee, with international students from Korea, the EU, Japan, and other countries accounting for 28% of the total.