Berklee Online Announces Film Scoring Master’s Degree

Following the historic launch of our first online master’s degree programs in 2018, Berklee Online announces the brand new Master of Music in Film Scoring program. The program will empower students with the skills and confidence to compose music to match any visual presentation that a filmmaker provides, and will officially start in January 2020, with applications launching on May 13.

All of Berklee Online’s graduate programs (including the Master of Music in Music Production and the Master of Arts in Music Business programs) consist of 12 courses (36 credits) that can be completed within one year. In keeping pace with the same flexibility that Berklee Online is known for, students have the option to start in any term during the academic year and will get the chance to have direct interactions with Berklee faculty and fellow students through their learning management system.

“The program features a powerhouse faculty from Berklee’s Film Scoring department and the industry, and they are excited to work with students from around the world to develop their unique voices as composers,” says Carin Nuernberg, Vice President of Online Education for Berklee Online. “Students will have the opportunity to learn through one-on-one and group instruction with real-world, versatile outcomes that pave the way for career opportunities.”

The Master of Music in Film Scoring program will teach students how to analyze a given film score on multiple musical and dramatic levels, articulate a unique compositional voice, compose in a wide variety of styles, produce a remote recording session with a professional orchestra, create exceedingly real-sounding orchestral mockups, navigate the complexities of working in the film industry, collaborate with directors, and much more.

Courses in the program include Orchestral Mockup in Film Scoring, Film Score Analysis, Composing the Film Score, Compositional Voice Development in Film Scoring, Orchestrating the Film Score with Live Sessions, and more.

Instructors include Jon Kull, who has more than 100 major motion picture credits as an orchestrator or conductor, including Black Panther, A Quiet Place, and all of the Hunger Games movies. With well-known credits in drama, comedy, action, horror, and children’s films, there’s not a genre he hasn’t orchestrated. Another prominent instructor in the program is John Whynot, a Grammy-winning producer/engineer who has worked on movies like The Last of the Mohicans, Austin Powers I and II, Ronin, Stigmata, and The Breadwinner, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2018.

“Berklee Online’s Master of Music in Film Scoring program combines two of Berklee’s greatest strengths: award-winning online learning and industry-leading film scoring education,” says Alison Plante, who is the director of the program. Plante was the first female chair of a collegiate Film Scoring department. She is an award-winning composer whose scoring credits include documentaries for PBS and the History Channel.

Plante also says that “two unique aspects of this Master of Music degree include its advanced coursework and student projects recorded remotely with a professional orchestra, a common industry practice and an experience not provided by other online degrees.”

The master’s degree program has continued the cost-effective, high-quality breadth of offerings from Berklee Online and gives students the chance to earn their degree for roughly 20 percent less than the cost of the tuition for an on-campus master’s degree.