INDIANOLA – The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center is pleased to welcome the Berklee College of Music to Sunflower County as a part of its visiting artist program. On Friday, April 15, the Berklee College of Music will visit Ruleville Central High School at 2 p.m. and present a workshop as well as discuss the Berklee Mississippi Music Exchange program with students. At 5:30 p.m., the Berklee College of Music will perform at the B.B. King Museum. The evening event is free and open to the public.

The Berklee Mississippi Music Exchange trades education, music, and culture between Boston’s Berklee College of Music, the Mississippi Delta and other parts of the state. Since 2008, the Exchange has awarded six musical teens full scholarships to attended Berklee’s Five-Week Summer Performance Program. Berklee students benefit, too, learning from Mississippi musicians who have visited campus or from their own travels into the state’s deep blues legacies and rich cultural history.

Berklee College of Music, for over 65 years, has evolved to support its belief that the best way to prepare students for careers in music is through contemporary music education. The college was the first in the U.S. to teach jazz, the popular music of the time. It incorporated rock n' roll in the 1960s, created the world's first degree programs in film scoring, music synthesis, and songwriting, and, in recent years, added world music, hip-hop, electronica, and video game music to its curriculum. With a diverse student body representing over 70 countries, a music industry "who's who" of alumni that have received 200 Grammy Awards, Berklee is the world's premier learning lab for the music of today – and tomorrow.
For more information, contact Carol Jackson, Education Coordinator, at 662-887-9539 ext. 222 or cjackson@bbkingmuseum.org.