Biography
The Yale School of Music values “service to the profession and society,” and this has been Kim Perlak’s work since graduation. After her Master of Music degree at Yale, she focused her doctoral study on new American music, finding practical applications in performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, composition, scholarship and nonprofit work, and in developing educational programs at the high school, community school and collegiate levels.
For Perlak, career highlights have included festival premieres of original music, collaborative recordings, and developing the Veterans Guitar Project in Austin, Texas. Now, as chair of the Guitar Department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, she serves a community of a thousand students, faculty and staff in the largest and most stylistically diverse guitar program in the world.
Perlak believes that the Yale School of Music emphasis on depth of craft, pushing the bounds of creativity, serving the community in a joyful and tangible way, and sustaining respectful interdisciplinary professional relationships are keys to the future for all Yale alumni. As a School of Music guest performer, mentor and YAA Delegate over the past two decades, she says it has been an honor to support current students and fellow alumni and to connect with leadership and faculty.
