Yvette Noel-Schure to Receive Honorary Doctorate at Berklee Valencia's 2023 Commencement

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VALENCIA, Spain, May 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Berklee Valencia will present an honorary Doctor of Music degree to highly regarded entrepreneur and music and entertainment PR executive Yvette Noel-Schure at its 2023 commencement ceremony on Monday, July 10, at 6:00 p.m. CET at the Auditori del Palau de les Arts.

The respected industry veteran, known for her work with Beyoncé, Prince, John Legend, and Chloe x Halle, among many others, will be recognized for her extraordinary career accomplishments, her dedication to the music industry on a global scale, and her work to promote multicultural diversity and inclusiveness for future generations. In the last five years, the Valencia campus has awarded honorary doctorates to Al Di Meola, Imogen Heap, Lila Downs, Gilberto Gil, and Alberto Iglesias.

At the ceremony the honoree will have the opportunity to address the graduating class of 2023. Commencement festivities will begin on the evening of Saturday, July 8, at 7:00 p.m. with La Nit de Berklee, a celebratory concert featuring the talent of the Berklee Valencia students at the Auditori del Palau de les Arts.

About Yvette Noel-Schure 

Yvette Noel-Schure is a self-made entrepreneur and highly regarded music publicist. With more than three decades of experience in the music industry, first as a journalist and then as a music publicist, she has represented iconic artists such as Beyoncé, John Legend, LeAnn Rimes, Chloe x Halle, Prince, and Mariah Carey, among others.

Growing up on the Caribbean island of Grenada, Noel-Schure had a deep passion for words and stories. After moving to the United States at the age of 14, she pursued her dream of becoming a journalist and joined Black Beat Magazine in 1985. As a music journalist, she met several artists early in their careers and was honored to interview them and tell their stories, including Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, New Edition, New Kids on the Block, Whitney Houston, and Babyface. It was in 1993, while working on a profile about Mariah Carey, that she caught the attention of Larry Jenkins, senior vice president of media at Columbia Records at the time, who offered her her first job as a publicist.

At Columbia Records she worked in numerous jobs, including as department head for media, a role in which she handled press for every music genre, and she eventually became the label's senior vice president of media. In 2010, she left Sony Music to co-found Schure Media Group, her own publicity and event planning agency, with her husband, David Schure. Beyoncé was their first client. Schure Media Group represents clients and artists such as Tina Knowles Lawson, Kelly Rowland, Dixson, Buju Banton, Michelle Williams, Teeks, Chloe x Halle, and Tan France. The company also represented Spain's own Julio Iglesias.

Today Noel-Schure serves as the chief communications officer of the company and is also the primary publicist for Parkwood Entertainment, a production, management, and entertainment company founded by Beyoncé.

Beyond her illustrious career in the music industry, Noel-Schure is also known for her social activism. She is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion in the entertainment industry and has worked extensively to promote the rights of women and people of color. She has led successful social campaigns including World Humanitarian Day 2012 and 2013 with the United Nations and Chime for Change with Gucci on the media campaign for the Sound of Change Live concert in 2013. She is a member of Gucci's Changemakers board. She has also taken part in several humanitarian missions in Africa to fight AIDS, and works closely with BeyGOOD, the initiative (now a public charity) founded by Beyoncé in 2013 to create programs with partners to positively affect people around the globe. She is part of the team, working closely with UNICEF, to aid the water crisis in Burundi, East Africa. She also works on BeyGOOD's Haiti project for children.

Additionally, as an immigrant from Grenada, Noel-Schure frequently gives back to her home country and throughout the West Indies and is a tourism ambassador for the island. She established an education fund with her husband to assure that students from her village and elsewhere around Grenada could attend St. Joseph's Convent Grenville, the private high school she attended before leaving the island, as well as funds to attend the TA Marryshow Community College on the island.

Noel-Schure has shown a deep commitment to the Berklee Valencia campus, where she has been a guest lecturer since 2015 and has served as a mentor for Berklee's Outstanding Women Scholarship program since 2018. In addition, she has participated in several student-led initiatives on diversity and inclusion hosted by the campus: Shifting the Conversation: Women Empower Symposium (2015), Project Next-Up (2016), Towards Balance in Music (2017), and Berklee's Commemoration of the UN's World Day of Social Justice (2020). A passionate advocate for education, she received Berklee's Master of Global Entertainment Award in 2019, and holds an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Saint Peter's University in New Jersey.

About Berklee

Berklee is the preeminent institute of contemporary music and the performing arts, offering degree programs at its campuses in Boston, New York City, and Valencia, Spain, and through its award-winning distance learning program, Berklee Online. Dedicated to nurturing the creative and career potential of the world's most inspired artists, Berklee's commitment to arts education is reflected in the work of its students, faculty, and alumni—hundreds of whom have been recognized with Grammy, Tony, Oscar, and Emmy awards.

At Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee, students explore interdisciplinary approaches to music, dance, theater, film, business, health care, education, technology, and more. Our pioneering youth programs reach underserved classrooms throughout the U.S. and beyond. With students and alumni from more than 100 nations and educational partners across the world, we are forging new connections among art forms, musical traditions, and technologies to build a dynamic, diverse, and collaborative global arts community. Learn more at Berklee.edu.

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