Geivens Dextra, winner of the 2023 Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship, finds ways to tell stories through music




Geivens and Myrtha Dextra

This year’s Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship winner, Geivens Dextra, stands with his mother, Myrtha. 



PITTSFIELD — When Geivens Dextra thinks about the future, he can practically hear it. One of his dreams is to work on film scores — the more fantastical the better.

Dextra, 17, a recent graduate of Pittsfield High School and a violinist since second grade, draws from a number of musical influences. His favorite artists include Kendrick Lamar and Tyler the Creator. But perhaps his biggest inspiration is Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson, whose credits include the soundtracks for “Black Panther,” “The Mandalorian,” and “Creed.”

A composer himself, Dextra, 17, hopes one day to work on scores for Marvel or “Star Wars.” A scholarship honoring a former local reporter and classically trained violinist may help him do just that.

Dextra was recently awarded the 2023 Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship in the amount of $2,000. The scholarship is awarded in honor of former reporter Daniel Pearl, who began his career with the North Adams Transcript and The Berkshire Eagle. He was working as South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal in 2002 when he was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan while investigating a story on terrorism.

The scholarship is awarded annually to a student in the Berkshires who share Pearl’s affinities for music and journalism.

Like Pearl, Dextra is a storyteller — one who wants to get to the heart of the stories he tells.

“It’s really like a reaction,” Dextra said. “The way [Göransson] writes his soundtracks is to look through these stories and read through these stories and get a feel for each section. This is how it sounds to him. The feeling that you wanted to display for what you’re trying to do — that’s real.”



Geivens Dextra

Geivens Dextra, who graduated from Pittsfield High School on Sunday, was awarded the 2023 Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship. He plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in music at University of Massachusetts Amherst.



When it comes to conveying something real, he had a rare opportunity. His original composition for the documentary “Hear Me,” about gun violence and drug abuse in Berkshire County, was one of his first chances to use music to tell difficult stories.

“My job was to find a way to just take these stories and shape them musically,” Dextra said. “I just got the general feeling of what they were saying trying to explain their experiences and put it into musical form.”

Dextra not only plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree of music in violin performance, but he also volunteers as a teaching assistant with Kids 4 Harmony, the youth music program that helped train him from second grade.


Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship awarded to Joseph Weinberg, a Pittsfield High School graduate

His mother, Myrtha Dextra, said it wasn’t always easy in the beginning. “He didn’t like it, every time he came home something hurt,” she said. Myrtha used video games as an incentive to keep him going to the classes — working her way from Playstation 1 to Playstation 4, she said, laughing.

Myrtha would also accompany her son on the bus every time he had an important interview for a program or school.

As a single mother who used to work a night shift, it wasn’t always easy. But she made it work.

“Every time he goes somewhere, I create time to be with him to make him feel like he’s doing something really important,” his mother said. “I don’t want him to give up.”

Geivens was accepted at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

Geivens Dextra plans to study music at University of Massachusetts Amherst, with the goal of continuing to use music as a way to convey important subjects.

His biggest lessons from his experience thus far: use your talent to speak up for what you believe in.

“I feel like we should be more appreciative of having a voice and feeling free to use it,” Dextra said. “Find ways to spread a message and try and move people. It can be through music, it can be through speeches and art, any way shape or form.”

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’, ‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’); fbq(‘init’, ‘915327909015523’); fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);



Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *