Berklee Online’s Class of 2025: Celebrating the Journey and Embracing the Future

On May 10, more than 200 members of Berklee Online’s class of 2025 will come together in Boston to take part in this year’s Commencement ceremony. This moment celebrates not only the completion of their bachelor’s programs, but also the connections they’ve built, the obstacles they’ve overcome, and the music and meaning they’ve created along the way. We’re shining a spotlight on five standout graduates whose stories exemplify where determination can take you.

Brielle Kimmins

Brielle Kimmins, who performs under the name AprilFoolChild, is a singer, songwriter, and flutist who is graduating from Berklee Online with her bachelor’s degree in Music Business. With deep Philadelphia roots, Brielle’s path in music was shaped by several key people in her life: her father C.B. Kimmins, a beloved activist and community figure; her uncle Joe “Butterball” Tamburro, a prominent Philly radio DJ; and her legendary godmothers, Phyllis Hyman and Natalie Cole. Hyman passed away when Brielle was young, but she has fond memories of Natalie from her childhood. 

“Just seeing her on stage, her elegance and her stage presence was really inspiring,” says Brielle about her godmother Natalie Cole. “I value that because there are so many sides to the music business.”

In her early twenties, Brielle participated in Berklee’s Aspire: Five-Week Music Performance Intensive. She was planning to attend Berklee full-time on campus when she became pregnant with her son. This shifted Brielle’s plans in a different direction, and she continued to pursue her music fiercely. After years of working in the music industry, she found her way to Berklee Online in pursuit of a career as an entertainment lawyer. 

“There were certain decisions I made—I signed a bad deal or played a session and didn’t get credited,” she says. “I thought, I can be jaded, or I can do something different. I decided I wanted to be an entertainment lawyer so I could enjoy making music again. That’s why I came back to Berklee.”

Commencement kicks off an exciting time for Brielle, who will be heading to London for a two-week legal fellowship. She plans to earn her JD/MBA, combining legal and business skills to advocate for independent artists. 

“What I’m most proud of is just not giving up on myself and coming back after so many years; Not letting anything make me feel ‘less than’ and showing up to be able to graduate,” says Brielle.

Hannes Mittermaier

A graduate of Berklee Online’s bachelor’s in Guitar Performance, Hannes Mittermaier will be traveling to Commencement in Boston from Munich, where he teaches at Ludwig Maximilian University. In addition to completing his degree in guitar, Hannes also completed his PhD in philosophy. He says he has always shared a passion for deep thinkers and guitar rockers.  

“I always try to balance my music activities and my also very lonely activities,” says Hannes, who is from Brixen, Italy. “If you are writing a book, if you’re sitting in front of a very difficult text, it’s a very isolated activity. I was really proud about sharing other things with music. Music is a social thing. Music is shared emotions. It’s a good balance for my two souls living in this body.”

Hannes recently made headlines for rocking out with a robot named Hellga Tarr that is programmed to play guitar. It was created by engineer Markus Kolb from Berlin. Together, Hannes and Hellga dueted his original song “Tabula Rasa,” which is named after a concept from John Locke about coming into the world as a blank slate. After writing and producing the song in his Berklee Online classes, Hannes thought that Hellga would add a deeper layer of meaning. 

“The main message is to be open to technology as much as you can, because technology was always part of music,” says Hannes. “If you go back in music history, every piece of music was related to the technical opportunities they had.”

Hannes will spend nine days in the Boston area during Commencement and has plans to meet his private lesson instructor Sean Michaud. Over the course of two years, they saw each other weekly for remote lessons, and they are finally meeting in person. 

“I’m just trying to understand this universal language we call music,” says Hannes. “That’s probably the main thing I learned at Berklee, to see the similarities between each genre, to see how our guitar works theoretically to understand harmony, and to go even deeper into that.”

Olga Gonithellis

Olga Gonithellis is a mental health counselor and a singer, songwriter, and performer based in New York City. She is graduating with her bachelor’s degree in Music Composition for Film, TV, and Games. She founded her own therapy practice, which specializes in working with artists and performers, authoring one of the few books on the topic: Counseling for Artists, Performers, and Other Creative Individuals. Now as a composer, she combines her talents in psychology and music to create emotionally resonant multimedia scores. 

“There’s something about being able to use musical tools to convey a feeling, an emotion, to try to understand what the director is thinking and feeling, and try to put that into musical language, that’s so fascinating. It still feels like magic to me every time I do that.”

Olga has found that her background in counseling has helped her persevere in the music industry. 

“So much of my work has been helping clients with creativity blocks, performance anxiety, stress around the industry, erratic schedules, and also how to utilize certain feelings, like anxiety or depression, to deal with mental health difficulties creativity,” she says. “As a composer, I have experienced firsthand what that’s like; the discipline that you need to show up every day on your computer, opening your DAW.” 

In addition to her therapy practice, she has a freelance business where she has scored films, documentaries, and podcasts. In 2024, her music composition was nominated for best score at the 48-Hour Film Project in NYC, where she was challenged to score a short film called The Dish in less than two days. 

Olga has a three-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter who will both be joining her in Boston for Commencement. 

“I started the degree before the second kid was born and I didn’t know if there was going to be a second or not,” she says. “But I just kind of always thought in the back of my mind it will be so cool when one day I walk at Commencement and have my kid or kids be there cheering me on. Something about that visual was always very inspiring and kept me going.”

Evan Harr

Up until a few years ago, Evan Harr was more likely to be found playing sports instead of playing music, but that all changed when he discovered music production. A member of the US Air Force Reserve, he was able to use his GI Bill to take advantage of Berklee Online’s military benefits, graduating with his bachelor’s degree in Music Production. 

“I started just learning everything I could about music—ear training, reading certain tabs, even doing a light piano class,” says Evan, who is from California. “But what I was most interested in was the editing portion. I did classes on Pro Tools to get my certification. Mixing and mastering is where I really had so much fun.”

Evan found it was helpful to be new on the music scene because it motivated him to collaborate with other musicians in his program who could contribute their instruments and vocals to his projects. Working a full-time job in property management, he’s enjoying producing original tracks with friends in his free time. However, he hopes to launch a mixing and mastering side business later this year. 

“So many people record at home now, and I really want to offer help putting it all together,” he says. “Ultimately you have to start your passion somewhere.”

Julia Pratt

The last time we caught up with Julia Pratt in a Take Note interview from 2023, she had recently received a grant from the Salt Lick Incubator, a nonprofit artist development organization founded by former Berklee President Roger Brown. Now a graduate of Berklee Online’s Music Business bachelor’s program, the project that she set out to create with the grant has come to fruition: Her Family Feud EP and short film.

“I’ve always wanted to connect visuals to my music and through the Salt Lick grant, that was the first time I had the means to,” says Julia. “It was rewarding to have a piece of visual art to accompany it, and check off that that dream bucket list item for me.”

Not only did she create a new EP, but she spent most of 2024 touring with acts such as Vancouver Sleep Clinic, Mipso, Angie McMahon, Amos Lee, the Japanese House, Joy Oladokun, and more. 

“2024 was just nonstop,” she says. “I’d gigged before, but locally, and it was it wasn’t very high stakes. And then all of a sudden, it was sometimes 2,000-, 3,000-capacity rooms. I had to adjust so it was definitely a learning curve. It was very busy, but it was also really fun.”

Following her eventful year of touring and graduating from Berklee Online, Julia is working on new music and says she’s about to “come back with a bang.” Her upcoming plans also include a songwriting retreat with other Salt Lick artists happening in Colorado this May. 

“Berklee Online was the best thing I’ve ever done academically,” says Julia. “It’s informed so many things that I’m doing now, and so many things that I did over the last year and a half being on the road.”