The first video of the series, which officially launches, January 15, 2019, takes on legendary jazz pianist Keith Jarrett’s famed composition “Last Solo Final Impromptu,” a song written over 30 years ago. In commenting, Dean Shelly Berg stated “Keith Jarrett and this composition are an exciting way for us to launch Frost Music Masters. Jarrett is known for his wonderful and improbable melodic improvisational jazz performances, and this song is no exception. It is “all about improvisation and confoundedly difficult to perform.”
The award-winning faculty participating in the first video of the series are the Frost Music Masters of Jazz:
- Dean Shelton G. (Shelly) Berg: Steinway piano artist and five-time Grammy-nominated arranger, orchestrator, and producer
- Dafnis Prieto: MacArthur Genius Fellow and Grammy-nominated Assistant Professor of Practice (Drums) of Studio Music and Jazz
- Martin Bejerano: Grammy-nominated Associate Professor of Jazz Piano
- Gonzalo Rubalcaba: Two-time Grammy and Latin Grammy winner.
Whether you’re a musician or not, you’ll enjoy seeing how these masters dissect this composition, demonstrating invaluable insight and performance techniques, which showcase the Frost School of Music’s philosophy of teaching students more than one way to learn: a curricular method that leads to success for students, as they “Build Themselves” in the Frost School.
For those wanting to try to take on this piece using the techniques provided by the Frost masters, show us what you’ve got and upload a short video clip of your performance to your social media and tag us #FrostMM.
You can access the Frost Music Masters video and more information via FrostMusicMasters.com
