Berklee today is the official alumni publication of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. It is a forum for contemporary music and musicians.
Issue link: http://berkleetoday.epubxp.com/i/827757
20 Berklee today Boston has a national reputation as the home to great sports teams, top medical facilities, and high-tech companies. But Boston is also an outstanding music town due to the num- ber of students who come here to study music and then put down roots after graduating. While the major music indus- try opportunities in Beantown don't rival those found in America's three major music hubs, many Massachusetts- based musicians have established great careers doing the kind of work they want. Live from Boston Associate professor Brad Hatfield '75 and his wife, professor Gaye Tolan Hatfield '82, have developed diverse careers that en- able them to teach and to perform and write music for some high-profile clients. And while they frequently work for TV and movie productions based in Los Angeles, they're firmly rooted in the Boston area. At the end of each workday they return to the peace of their lakefront home north of Boston. Brad teaches for Berklee's songwriting department and Gaye is a member of the Ear Training faculty. Both also teach courses for Berklee Online. Gaye co-authored and teaches the "Music Foundations" online course. Brad authored and teaches "Music Supervision," which was named the best online course of 2012 by the University Professional and Continuing Education Association. Their ties to Hollywood have offered great opportunities to create music for TV and film. The Hatfields were recently nom- inated for a 2017 Daytime Emmy for their work as part of the team writing music for The Young and the Restless. Brad won an Emmy in 2006 for a song he cowrote with Michael Kisur for the same show. On the Hatfields' collective résumé are music credits for C.S.I., The Good Wife, Saturday Night Live, Rescue Me, and The Sopranos, to name a few. They have contributed cues Boston, You're My Home Alumni of note who chose to launch their careers in Boston rather than in L.A., New York, or Nashville By Mark Small Brad Hatfield '75 and Gaye Tolan Hatfield '82 to such films as Iron Man 2, Dear John, and Borat, among others. Also, Brad's solo piano flows under the opening scene and end credits of Clint Eastwood's film Mystic River. Brad has been writing orchestrations for the Boston Pops Orchestra since the late 1980s. He also appears regularly with the Pops playing keyboards for the group's nationally televised July 4 concert from the Esplanade. Gaye penned a choral ar- rangement that was performed during one esplanade show. All of their work has developed from their Boston network. Gaye grew up in Scituate, MA, and after high school, en- rolled at Crane School of Music as a classical saxophone prin- cipal and music education major. She later rethought her career plans. "I transferred to Berklee and started playing other styles of music," she says. "I majored in commercial arranging. After graduating, I wasn't ready to jump into the workforce as an ar- ranger, but I started doing my own arrangements to play at wedding gigs." The couple met in the eighties when Brad was looking for a singer for his general business band, Gaye auditioned. He was impressed with her singing and woodwind playing and that she had a book of her own charts. They began working together and married a few years later. Gaye joined the Berklee faculty in 1992. "I had played some gigs with Greg Badolato, who was chair of Ear Training at that time," she recalls. "He was instrumental in bringing me to the faculty. I started out teaching ear training and ensembles." Brad grew up in Columbus, OH, and was considering going to Indiana University after high school. His brother Mike Hatfield '75 was attending Berklee. After Brad paid him a visit there, he also opted for Berklee. He later formed a pop cover group that played gigs all over the country. "The band was pretty much all Berklee alumni," he recalls. He later discovered that knowing hundreds pop songs had benefits beyond a weekly paycheck. "With the Boston Pops, I've gotten to play some of those songs with the original artists: the Pointer Sisters, James Taylor, and Aretha Franklin," Brad says. "I already knew the tunes." Brad's Boston roots began growing deeper after he began touring and recording with the jazz composer George Russell and his Living Time Orchestra in the late 1980s. Also in the group was percussionist Pat Hollenback, who also worked with the Boston Pops Orchestra. "Pat had observed me making it through George's complex music," Brad says,