Bob Dylan Receives Honorary Doctorate from Berklee College of Music

"Bob Dylan has spent a lifetime learning, absorbing, and transforming every American song tradition, and Berklee strives to teach all the music that Dylan loves,"

"His deep immersion in African American blues parallels much of Berklee's curriculum, which is rooted in the distinctly American variants of the music of the African diaspora."

"Thank you, Berklee College of Music, for bestowing on me this prestigious honor. What a pleasant surprise,"

"Who knows what path my career might have taken if I'd been fortunate enough to learn from some of the great musicians who taught at Berklee. It's something to think about."

Bob Dylan, holder of a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer, an Academy Award, and ten Grammy Awards, received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music for his extraordinary influence on modern music and his lifelong commitment to creative exploration. The honor is the first time an American college or university has bestowed such recognition on Dylan since 1970. Berklee highlighted Dylan's immersion in American song traditions and African American blues as aligning with the school's curriculum rooted in the music of the African diaspora. Dylan expressed gratitude and reflected that studying with Berklee teachers might have changed his career path. Previous Berklee honorary doctorate recipients include Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones, Joni Mitchell, B.B. King, Ringo Starr, Roberta Flack, A. R. Rahman, and Loretta Lynn.

Read at Consequence