LIVE at Piedmont Piano Company
JAZZ PIANO MASTERS SERIES
Shelly Berg, solo
History of Jazz Piano
Virtuosic pianist and 5x-Grammy nominated composer and arranger Shelly Berg presents an exciting and highly informative 'History of Jazz Piano' concert that showcases and explains iconic styles such as stride, block-chord, and bebop by legendary pianists, including Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum, George Shearing, Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, and more. Shelly is artistic director of The Jazz Cruise, artistic advisor to the Jazz Roots series at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, and music director of The Barclay Jazz and Beyond Orchestra at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.
General Admission
$30 in advance / $35 at the door
We are offering a limited number of tickets to attend this performance in person. Advance purchase is recommended.
SHELLY BERG
A highly accomplished pianist, composer and arranger, Shelton “Shelly” G. Berg served for 19 years as Dean and Patricia L. Frost Professor of Music at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. He was previously the McCoy/Sample Professor of Jazz Studies at USC Thornton School of Music where he was department chair and taught for 16 years. He is a past president of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) and has served on numerous education and civic boards. In 2025, DownBeat inducted him into their Education Hall of Fame and in 2000, the Los Angeles Times named him one of three “Educators for the Millennium.” He has performed and lectured throughout the world and has numerous arrangements, compositions and texts in publication.
Berg is the artistic advisor for the JazzRoots series at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County and is a recipient of their Arts Champion Award. He serves as artistic director of The Jazz Cruise, is a co-producer of a summer collegiate JAS Academy presented by the Frost School of Music and Jazz Aspen Snowmass in Aspen, Colorado, and is an advisor to The Frost School of Music at Festival Napa Valley, a summer classical chamber music academy in Napa Valley, California. He is also the Tom and Mayumi Adams Music Director for the Barclay Jazz & Beyond Orchestra in Irvine, California.
A five-time Grammy-nominated artist, he is widely acclaimed for his energetic and innovative approaches to performance, composition, and pedagogy; has performed and recorded with top music industry professionals and has orchestrated music for television, motion pictures and major orchestras. The All-Music Guide says, "Shelly Berg is one of the finest pianists around in the early 21st century playing modern mainstream jazz.” His CD, Blackbird (Concord) reached #1 in US jazz radio (Jazzweek, 2005). Recent recording and arranging projects include a new jazz trio album Alegría (ArtistShare, July 2024) with his Grammy-nominated composition “At Last,” a solo CD The Nearness of You (Arbors), Arturo Sandoval's Grammy Award-winning Dear Diz (Every Day I Think of You) and multi-Latin Grammy winning A Time for Love (Concord). He was arranger, orchestrator and co-producer of Gloria Estefan’s albums The Standards, and Estefan Family Christmas. As a featured soloist, he performed and recorded the album Gershwin Reimagined with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, which was a Top-15 Classical Crossover Album and Top- 10 Classical Album (Billboard). shellyberg.com