Shai Maestro Trio
Pianist Shai Maestro was born on February 5, 1987 in Israel. He started playing the piano at the age of five and was first enchanted by jazz music when he was eight. He was interested in Oscar Peterson's Gershwin Songbook recording. Later, Shai was accepted to Thelma-Yellin High School of Performing Arts in Givataim, where he was one of the few students to successfully combine jazz and classical studies.
While still in high school, he received a full scholarship to a five-week Berklee summer program College of Music for two consecutive years. While on a concert tour in the US, he applied to the standard four-year degree program at Berklee and again received a full scholarship. Shai Maestro studied jazz piano and RTC (Real Time Composition) with Opher Brayer for two years and classical piano with Professor Benjamin Oren of the Jerusalem Academy of Music. He also delved into the secrets of Indian music and tabla playing with Sanjay Kumar Sharma.
The maestro currently lives in New York, has earned the respect of his peers and the media, and regularly performs with the best jazz artists in various clubs and concerts halls. Shai plays with world-renowned musicians including Jimmy Green, Jorge Rossy, Myron Walden, Donny McCaslin, Matt Penman, Scott Colley, Clarence Penn, Ari Hoenig, Gilad Hekselman, Nate Smith, Harish Rhagavan, Mark Guiliana, Anthony Hart, Diego Urcola and more.
In 2006, Shai Maestro joined the band of cult bassist Avishai Cohen. With the Cohen Trio, he visited all major jazz concert venues around the world, including Blue Note in New York, Ronnie Scott in England, Olympia Hall, Salle Pleyel, and Theater Bataclan in Paris, Vienne Jazz Festival, Marciac Jazz Festival, Cork Jazz Festival, Yoshi (San Francisco), Zaragoza JF, Konzerthaus in Vienna and many more.
Shai Maestro plays on a total of four Avishai Cohen recordings - the album Gently Disturbed (2008) earned rave reviews worldwide and was the best-selling compact disc in several countries. The album Sensitive Hours (2008) was released in Israel and became the best-selling album there. Aurora (2009) was already released on the EMI label, and Seven Seas (2011) could be seen live by fans at a concert in Brno as part of JazzFest 2012.< /p>
In May 2011 Maestro left Avishai Cohen's band and chose his own path as a bandleader, composer and arranger. Shai Maestro Trio was formed in July 2010 after a recording session in a studio in Brooklyn. The remaining two members of the trio, Israeli drummer Ziv Ravitz and Peruvian bassist Jorge Roeder, also live in New York. "The connection between us was so strong that we actually formed a band naturally right away. It was obvious from the first moment," says the Maestro. Since then, the trio has been cruising around the world, playing at festivals, concert halls and jazz clubs with an extremely welcoming response from audiences.
Their the debut album, simply named Shai Maestro was released under the French label Laborie. where the music will take us...,” the Maestro said at the time. > (2015) and The Stone Skipper (2016).