Lincoln Park senior wins Berklee College music scholarship
Drew Percy, a resident of Butler, Pa., and a senior at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, has been awarded a full scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass.
A son of Roger and Lisa Percy, he plays classical violin and jazz fiddle. He hopes for a career as a performing musician. At Berklee he plans a dual major in performance and electronic musical production and design. His scholarship will pay for all tuition and fees for his entire undergraduate career so long as he maintains certain academic standards.
Percy has been a student at Lincoln Park since his freshman year. He has studied classical technique for a number of years with Cyrus Forough, a music professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
“In addition to being an absolutely superb musician, Drew applies himself completely to everything he does. With his combination of talent, focus, and hard work, I’m not at all surprised that Berklee awarded him this scholarship,” said Rebecca Manning, CEO of Lincoln Park.
Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center is one of 32 member organizations nationwide in the Berklee City Music Network, an outreach program of Berklee College of Music dedicated to teaching music to underserved students by using contemporary music including jazz, rhythm and blues, rap and hip-hop.
Percy is the second Lincoln Park student to receive a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music. Levi Keller of Mars, Pa., a guitarist, currently is a freshman at Berklee.
Percy said his family has no musical background. Neither his parents nor his two older sisters, who now attend college, played music. “Music came to me out of the blue. I saw a concert in kindergarten and I knew from the start I wanted to play violin,” he said.
His parents allowed him to begin private violin lessons in third grade. He attributes his classical technique to instruction from CMU professor Cyrus Forough.
After enrolling at Lincoln Park to continue classical violin studies, other musical instruments and styles began to interest him.
“I woke up one day and said, ‘I want to play everything else,'” he said. He began to play piano and mandolin, and fell in love with jazz.
When considering colleges, Percy applied only to Berklee because “when I visited there for the first time I knew that was where I wanted to go.” The scholarship he received is based on merit, with an audition and interview process the main factors. In addition to majoring in performance, he wants to learn electronic musical production and design in order to “make your sounds from the ground up.”
Percy’s current career aspirations include joining a musical group and going on tour.
ABOUT BERKLEE CITY MUSIC NETWORK:
The Berklee City Music Network is a national movement changing lives of underserved youth through music education. Berklee College of Music established the City Music Network to replicate a successful program in Boston that granted after-school and summer education while preparing the middle and high school students for college along the way. Professional musicians direct student ensembles, teach theory, ear training, and performance using popular r&b, rock, hip-hop, and jazz songs at each site utilizing an interactive online curriculum called PULSE. Scholarships bring qualifying students at the various sites to study in Boston for the 5-Week Summer Performance Program. This program is a transformative opportunity provided at no cost to the student or family. The website is www.berkleecitymusic.org.
Lincoln Park press release. Jan. 25, 2012. Contact Fred Miller, fred.miller@nndsonline.org, 724.777.5918
