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36 | <strong>01945</strong><br />
Star-bound singer<br />
BY BILL BROTHERTON<br />
It was the afternoon of April 2 when Marblehead<br />
High graduate Melina Laganas<br />
grabbed that day’s mail and spotted the<br />
envelope from Berklee College of Music. She<br />
opened it with a bit of hesitation and slowly<br />
unfolded the letter.<br />
“Congratulations. You have been accepted…”<br />
She started to cry. Better yet, the prestigious<br />
Boston school had awarded her a full-tuition,<br />
four-year Berklee City Music College<br />
Scholarship, a highly competitive merit- and<br />
need-based award.<br />
“I had to read the letter over and over and<br />
over. I was crying. I was so happy,” she said.<br />
She ran to share the great news with her<br />
parents.<br />
“I thought she was pranking me,” recalled her<br />
dad, William, a Swampscott native, with a<br />
laugh. “It was the day after April Fools.” The<br />
estimated tuition for four years at Berklee is<br />
$190,032.<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 in was<br />
noticed,” said Melina, relaxing on a bench at<br />
Chandler Hovey Park. “It was so great to be<br />
with kids who shared the same interests and<br />
passions as me.”<br />
The college provided her and other students<br />
with a piano, mic and electronic digital<br />
instrument.<br />
The Laganas home on Pleasant Street has always<br />
been filled with music. Her dad, a 1984<br />
Swampscott High grad and owner/caterer of<br />
Eastern Harvest Foods, would blast his classic<br />
rock albums (Kinks, Stones). Her mom, Enid,<br />
prefered the pop hits of Shakira, Gwen Stefani<br />
and Christina Aguilera.<br />
Melina’s tastes are a bit more eclectic. She<br />
gushes about Jacob Collier, Jill Scott, Erykah<br />
Badu, Dinosaur Jr. and Charlie Puth — who<br />
graduated from Berklee with a degree in music<br />
production and engineering, the very program<br />
Melina plans to major in.<br />
Daughter and dad have attended many concerts<br />
together, mostly at Lynn Auditorium<br />
when Wiliam, who grew up on Shelton Road<br />
in Swampscott, prepared and served meals
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