BYCA People - Artistic Staff
Dianne Berkun
Dianne Berkun is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy (BYCA), a performance-based vocal music education program serving students from throughout New York City, and the GRAMMY® Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus (BYC), an internationally acclaimed performing ensemble.
A native of New York, Ms. Berkun made her onstage conducting debut at Carnegie Hall in 2003, performing Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols with BYC. Ms. Berkun has also conducted BYC for performances of Britten’s War Requiem with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Lorin Maazel, the Juilliard Orchestra with David Atherton, and the The Collegiate Chorale and The Orchestra of St. Luke’s under Robert Bass.
Under Ms. Berkun’s leadership, BYC has become the ensemble of choice for collaborative performances with internationally renowned orchestras and artists. Berkun has prepared choruses and soloists for performances with acclaimed conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Marin Alsop, James Levine, Charles Dutoit, Robert Spano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leon Botstein and Dennis Russell Davies. Most notably, she prepared BYC for its 2002 debut with the New York Philharmonic in John Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning On the Transmigration of Souls, the recording for which the Chorus won its GRAMMY® Award in February 2005.
Ms. Berkun has prepared the Chorus to study and perform a broad range of music—classical and non-classical—and has established an active commissioning program to develop new works for youth chorus across a variety of genres. Ms. Berkun prepared the Chorus to record Philip Glass’ music for the film Undertow (Orange Mountain Music, 2004) and to sing with a wide variety of major recording artists such as Sir Elton John, Lou Reed, Grizzly Bear, John Legend, Alicia Keys, Natasha Bedingfield, Judy Collins, Andrea Boccelli, and Ray Davies.
Ms. Berkun is active as a guest conductor and master teacher for choral workshops, demonstrations and choral festivals for organizations such as the New York Philharmonic, The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, NYSMMA, ACDA, and the New York City Department of Education. She presented BYCA’s Cross-Choral Training (sm) program – a unique method for teaching vocal technique and musicianship that she developed by Ms. Berkun and BYCA voice specialist Jeannette LoVetri –in a week-long workshop at New York University. She was Director of Music for Brooklyn Friends School and has served as a choral music consultant in the New York City public schools (including serving on the 2003 K–12 Music Curriculum Development committee).
Ms. Berkun earned her B.S. degree in Music Education and Piano magna cum laude from New York University. She studied conducting and theory at Mannes College of Music, and holds a graduate diploma in the Kodály Concept from the University of Calgary and an Artist-Teacher diploma from the CME Institute where she studied extensively with Dr. Doreen Rao. Ms. Berkun was honored by the YWCA of Brooklyn as a “Woman of Distinction” and received the 2002 “Lifetime Struggle and Achievement Award” from Congressman Major R. Owens.
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