After graduating from St Andrew’s Cathedral School and completing the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in November 2023, Joel Nicholl has received the brilliant news that he has been accepted into the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts! We sat down with Joel to hear more about his story and how St Andrew’s Cathedral School provided him with skills and opportunities for his future goals.
Congratulations on receiving an offer to study at Berklee! Could you tell us a bit about your degree and what you will be studying?
Thanks! I’ll be studying a Bachelor of Music, it’s a five-year degree. I haven’t quite decided what majors I’ll be choosing, but it’ll most likely be music business, music production or songwriting.
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Some notable alumni include John Mayer, Charlie Puth, Alan Silvestri and Brad Whitford.
How did you decide on Berklee as your dream university?
A couple years ago, when I was still living in Vancouver, I sat down with my parents and we decided that if I wanted to get into Berklee, I had to start taking things really seriously. So from that point onwards, I really started focusing on vocal lessons.
Did St Andrew’s Cathedral School help you achieve your goals?
I would definitely say that the School helped me achieve my goals. Sight reading was something that I was really conscious about and it was one of my biggest weaknesses. But with the help of my music teachers, I was able to overcome this and smash my audition.
I’m also really grateful for all the performance opportunities I had at St Andrew’s Cathedral School. Two that stood out the most was SACSFactor and the 2023 Music Tour in Italy. I loved participating in SACSFactor (student ‘battle of the bands event’) because I took a leading role and got to use my contemporary knowledge in music to help compose a piece for our house to perform. I really enjoyed performing at all the different venues on the Italy Music Tour and hearing how the different spaces treated sound and experiencing what it was like to perform in them.
