Lucy Khadder Named 2025 Jimmy Lyons Scholarship Recipient

Lucy Khadder, a vocalist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Alameda, California, has been named the 28th recipient of Berklee's Jimmy Lyons Scholarship, a four-year, full-tuition award presented in conjunction with the Monterey Jazz Festival. 

Khadder, who will begin her studies in Boston this fall, is hoping to major in either Music Performance or Professional Music. In addition to the scholarship, she will also perform with the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice Quartet at the 68th annual Monterey Jazz Festival, taking place September 26-28, 2025, where she will be presented with her award.

“I'm deeply honored to receive the Jimmy Lyons Scholarship, especially knowing that so many of my musical heroes have been past recipients,” says Khadder. “This award makes it possible for me to pursue my dreams at Berklee and reflects the years of dedication that brought me here. I'm so grateful to return to the Monterey Jazz Festival this year and represent Berklee.”

Khadder began her musical training as a fiddle player at the age of six and soon expanded into jazz. She continued her exploration of the genre at Oakland School for the Arts, where she studied jazz violin. Khadder has since studied with Chad Manning, a renowned fiddler and cofounder of Manning Music in Berkeley, California; violinist Alex Hargreaves ’13, a Berklee alum and a 2010 recipient of the Jimmy Lyons Scholarship; and Grammy Award-winning violinist Mads Tolling. The Alameda native has been fortunate to perform twice at the Monterey Jazz Festival—first in 2023 with the Next Generation Women in Jazz Combo, and again in 2024 with the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. In the summer of 2024, Khadder attended Berklee’s Aspire: Five-Week Music Intensive program, where she explored American roots and funk fusion. 

A two-time YoungArts award winner in jazz violin, the young musician has performed at festivals and venues across the country with her bluegrass bands, Sweet Sally and Salty Sally. She is a regular performer with the Oaktown Jazz Performance Ensemble and was awarded a scholarship by the Santa Cruz Jazz Festival to attend the Stanford Jazz Institute. Additionally, Khadder taught private fiddle, guitar, and ukulele lessons to children and adults from 2020-2024.

“I was so pleased to offer Lucy this distinguished award,” says Damien Bracken, dean of Admissions at Berklee. “I have known Lucy for some time now and watched her development throughout high school as a member of the Monterey Jazz Festival Women in Jazz Ensemble and the Next Gen Jazz Orchestra. Lucy thinks outside the box and demonstrates an insatiable appetite for the creative arts. She is an excellent role model and most deserving of the title of Jimmy Lyons Scholar 2025.”

Previous recipients of the Jimmy Lyons Scholarship include Billy Buss BM ’09 (Billy Hart), Rushad Eggleston ’03 (Crooked Still), Milton Fletcher BM ’03 (Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah), Jonathan Pinson BM ’11 (Wayne Shorter), Dayna Stephens ’01 (Kenny Barron), and James Williams ’06 (Gary Burton).

About the Jimmy Lyons Scholarship

In 1996, Berklee, in association with the Monterey Jazz Festival, created the Jimmy Lyons Scholarship, in honor of the festival’s founder. Started as a nonprofit in 1958, the Monterey Jazz Festival is the longest continuously running jazz festival in the world, and has presented nearly every major jazz artist over the last 60-plus years—from Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Dave Brubeck ’09H, Tony Bennett ’74H, and Miles Davis to contemporary masters Herbie Hancock ’86H, Diana Krall ’83, Wynton Marsalis, Norah Jones, and esperanza spalding BM ‘05, ’18H. As a nonprofit, the Monterey Jazz Festival is devoted to jazz education by presenting year-round local, regional, national, and international programs.