Shai Maestro Trio

Pianist Shai Maestro was born on 5 February 1987 in Israel. He started playing piano at the age of five and was first enchanted by jazz music when he was eight. He was intrigued by Oscar Peterson's Gershwin Songbook. 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 the Berklee College of Music's five-week summer program for two consecutive years. While on a concert tour in the U.S., he enrolled in the standard four-year program at Berklee and was again awarded 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.

Maestro currently lives in New York, has earned the respect of his peers and the media, and regularly performs with top jazz artists in a variety of clubs and concert halls. Shai has played 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 others.

V roce 2006 se Shai Maestro připojil ke kapele kultovního basisty Avishaie Cohena. S Cohenovým triem navštívil všechny zásadní jazzové koncertní prostory po celém světě, mj. Blue Note v New Yorku, Ronnie Scott v Anglii, Olympia Hall, Salle Pleyel, a Theater Bataclan v Paříži, Vienne Jazz festival, Marciac Jazz festival, Cork Jazz Festival, Yoshi (San Francisco), Zaragoza JF, Konzerthaus ve vídni a mnoho dalších.

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 released on EMI and the album Seven Seas (2011) could be seen live at the Brno concert during JazzFest 2012.

In May 2011, Maestro left Avishai Cohen's band and chose his own path as a bandleader, composer and arranger. The 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 naturally formed a band right away. It was obvious from the first moment," says Maestro. Since then, the trio has crisscrossed the globe, playing festivals, concert halls and jazz clubs to an extremely receptive audience.

Their debut album, simply named Shai Maestro Trio was released under the French label Laborie. "This album is just the beginning of our collaboration... We have a lot of work ahead of us and the possibilities are endless. I am very curious to see where the music will take us...," said Maestro at the time. Shai Maestro Trio has several other albums to their credit – The Road to Ithaca (2013), Untold Stories (2015) and The Stone Skipper (2016).