Shelton G. “Shelly” Berg is Dean and Patricia L. Frost Professor of Music at the Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. He is widely acclaimed for his energetic and innovative approaches to performance, composition, and pedagogy. Berg has performed and lectured throughout the world and has numerous arrangements, compositions and texts in publication. Berg was previously the McCoy/Sample Professor of Jazz Studies at USC Thornton School of Music and a past president of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE). In 2000, the Los Angeles Times named him one of three “Educators for the Millennium.”

A Steinway piano artist, Berg has performed and recorded with top music industry professionals and 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 album, Blackbird (Concord) reached #1 in US jazz radio (Jazzweek). He recently recorded “Rhapsody in Blue” and other Gershwin selections with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and released a solo album The Nearness of You (Arbors).

In 2014 Shelly Berg was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) for “What a Wonderful World” on Gloria Estefan: The Standards and was nominated for an additional Grammy as co-producer of the same album. He previously earned a Grammy nomination for his arrangement of “Out There” on Lorraine Feather’s Tales of the Unusual. Other orchestrating and recording projects include Arturo Sandoval’s Grammy Award winning Dear Diz (Every Day I Think of You) and Latin Grammy winning A Time for Love. Berg is music director for The Jazz Cruise and has music directed and conducted orchestras and major productions at the Adrienne Arsht Center, Hollywood Bowl, Royal Albert Hall and the White House.