Yasuhiko Fukuoka has been named the 2005 BMI Film Scoring Scholarship recipient at Berklee College of Music. Fukuoka, a Berklee film scoring major from Japan, was presented the scholarship by BMI composer George S. Clinton; Doreen Ringer-Ross, BMI Vice President, Film/TV Relations, Berklee President Roger Brown and Berklee Film Scoring Department Chair Don Wilkins at Berklee in Boston, MA.

The BMI Film Scoring Scholarship is a yearly tuition scholarship chosen on the basis of compositional maturity and talent, as well as financial need. Each year the scholarship is given in the name of a noted BMI composer. This year Clinton was the honored composer. With credits including the Austin Powers trilogy, the Mortal Kombat series, Wild Things, A Dirty Shame and serving as a Sundance Composers Lab Advisor, Clinton taught a master class at the college on scoring as part of the presentation.

“This scholarship continues our mission of supporting young and emerging composers at the college level,” stated Ringer-Ross. “We support Berklee’s commitment to excellence in music and film scoring and their determination to further the growth of talented, trained, and educated composers.”

Berklee Film Scoring Department Chair Don Wilkins said, “When his name was mentioned for the 2005 BMI Scholarship, ‘Yaz’ was an obvious choice among many excellent students in the major. His nomination was quickly followed by even stronger recommendations from the Film Scoring faculty. I was immediately connected on an emotional level with is his music. From his demo, I heard cue after cue that was dramatically focused and musically cohesive. With his warm and professional manner, Yaz has much going in his favor to establish a professional career.”

Yasuhiko Fukuoka, who was born in Japan, began learning the piano at age 9. By age 12, after joining the school brass band as a percussionist, he had decided to pursue a career in music. He was given his first computer and MIDI equipment during his mid-teens, and started spending hours learning and experimenting. After developing his skills, he began writing music for orchestral settings. Eventually he had enough original music to create a CD, which a local TV station ran a 20-minute program on. This led to his first gig as a composer for a television quiz show, and motivated him to attend a classical music college in Tokyo. In 2001, Fukuoka moved to Boston to study Film Scoring and Music Synthesis at Berklee College of Music. During his time at Berklee he has won several awards, including the two achievement scholarships, the World Scholarship, the Roland Award, as well as the prestigious BMI Scholarship.

Berklee College of Music was founded on the revolutionary principle that the best way to prepare students for careers in music was through the study and practice of contemporary music. For over half a century, the college has evolved constantly to reflect the state of the art of music and the music business. With over a dozen performance and nonperformance majors, a diverse and talented student body representing 70 plus countries, and a music industry “who’s who” of alumni, Berklee is the world’s premier learning lab for the music of today – and tomorrow.

BMI, founded in 1939, is an American performing rights organization that represents approximately 300,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in all genres of music. Through its music performance and reciprocal agreements, it grants businesses and media access to its repertoire of approximately 4.5 million musical works from around the world.