01907 Summer 2021
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SUMMER <strong>2021</strong> | 27<br />
Singing her<br />
way to the stars<br />
BY BILL BROTHERTON<br />
Musician Melina Laganas was awarded a four-year scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston.<br />
PHOTOS: SPENSER HASAK<br />
It was the afternoon of April 2 when<br />
Melina Laganas grabbed that day’s<br />
mail and spotted the envelope from<br />
Berklee College of Music. She opened it<br />
with a bit of hesitation and slowly unfolded<br />
the letter.<br />
“Congratulations. You have been<br />
accepted…”<br />
“I thought she was pranking me,”<br />
recalled her dad, William, a Swampscott<br />
native, with a laugh. “It was the day after<br />
April Fools.” The estimated tuition for<br />
four years at Berklee is $190,032.<br />
Melina started to cry. Better yet, the<br />
prestigious Boston school had awarded her<br />
a full-tuition, four-year Berklee City Music<br />
College Scholarship, a highly competitive<br />
merit- and need-based award.<br />
“I had to read the letter over and over<br />
and over. I was crying. I was so happy,” said<br />
the Marblehead High School graduate.<br />
Berklee, in fact, has already been a great<br />
fit for Melina. She received a Berklee City<br />
Music High School Academy 5-week<br />
summer intensive scholarship three years<br />
in a row and recently received the Unsung<br />
Hero award for Berklee’s pre-college summer<br />
ensemble program.<br />
“It was good to see that the work I put<br />
in was noticed,” said Melina, relaxing on a<br />
bench at Chandler Hovey Park. “It was so<br />
great to be with kids who shared the same<br />
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