Berklee and APM open student music catalog for global licensing

Berklee students and alumni can now submit music to a global production catalog created with APM Music, giving their work a route into film, television, advertising, sports, games and other visual media. Berklee announced the partnership through Berklee.edu, describing the catalog as a professional platform for music made at Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

The Berklee Music Library is being built through the Syncubator, a Berklee initiative supported by the Career Center. The program is designed to take students through more than the creative process: participants can write, perform and produce tracks while also gaining experience in artist and repertoire work, publishing, marketing, metadata and catalog administration.

That combination is intended to help emerging musicians understand how music reaches commercial users. Students can develop credits, connect with people who make licensing decisions and potentially generate income from their work before graduating.

Turning classroom work into usable music

The program grew from discussions led by Dr. LaMarcus Miller, professor of voice and the Syncubator’s executive director, about whether students could work in the synchronization business while still studying it. An earlier Student Sync Club had already gathered people interested in music supervision and licensing. The Syncubator expanded that interest into a program covering both the creative and commercial sides of the field.

Hayley Thompson-King, an associate professor of voice and the program’s director of operations, works with Miller on the initiative. Berklee says the project is intended to help students form professional relationships that may support their creative careers financially over the long term.

The library began with two albums: Modern American Voices and A Berklee Christmas. Both use contemporary arrangements of public-domain songs, with examples including “Yankee Doodle” and “Deck the Halls.” The releases give APM a starting selection while the program develops additional projects aimed at particular needs in visual media.

One album in development is a pop and R&B project led by alumnus Jevon Garrett. Its contributors include vocalists, writers and producers, while songwriting faculty members Keli Nicole Price and Antea Birchett are working on its A&R team. Garrett said the collaboration had broadened his view of how the next generation of Berklee musicians might sound.

The catalog’s educational purpose extends to the less visible work required for licensing. Emma Giron, a senior serving as the Syncubator’s metadata and catalog manager, has gained experience organizing the detailed information that allows users to identify and license tracks. That role demonstrates that a production-music operation relies not only on performances and recordings but also on accurate, searchable records.

A route into a large licensing network

APM Music is jointly owned by Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group. The company represents more than 300 libraries around the world and offers a catalog exceeding one million tracks. Its music has been licensed for hundreds of films and television programs and used by sports bodies including the NFL, MLB and its 30 teams, the NHL and MLS.

For Berklee participants, that relationship places student-created work within an established marketplace rather than leaving it solely in an academic setting. The music must be useful to editors, producers, broadcasters and music supervisors, which can affect arrangement, structure, rights information and the way tracks are presented to potential users.

The Syncubator team is also preparing music that could be considered for the 2028 Summer Olympics. Planned material includes cinematic scoring for athlete profiles and energetic vocal music for promotional content. The project gives students a specific media brief while exposing them to the demands of a major potential audience.

Berklee’s vice president of career strategy and services, Stefanie Henning, said the institution views partnerships such as this as a way to convert creative development into work experience, income opportunities and broader public reach.

The program is open to eligible college and conservatory students and alumni. Applicants for the 2027–2028 creative cohort may apply alone or as a team. The eligible roles include songwriters, topliners, singers, instrumentalists, producers and engineers, and applications can come from any genre.

A town hall for interested students and alumni is scheduled for October 9 from 1 p.m. to 2:50 p.m. at Lawrence and Alma Berk Recital Hall, 1140 Boylston Street. The session will explain the Syncubator and introduce the Olympic-related album projects. Applications are due by 11:55 p.m. on November 6.