‘An innate talent': South Florida piano prodigy returns from Juilliard for concert

Miami Herald

21-04-2025

Once the 'Little Piano Man' who, in 2024, graduated with honors from Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Brandon Goldberg returns home from his first year at New York's Juilliard conservatory as an adult artist with his own, eponymous jazz trio.
Goldberg, 19, will perform in concert Sunday7 at Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, which is managed by Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
'This is half solo, half trio,' says Goldberg. 'The program is the music of Kern, Gershwin, Porter and Powell – Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Bud Powell.'
The Brandon Goldberg Trio, featuring jazz bassist Vincent Dupont and drummer Aaron Kimmel, will be presented by the annual Miami International Piano Festival, which this season has hosted more than 20 live recitals by pianists from around the world.
Goldberg has been performing professionally since he was a child, appearing on national television and in concert halls around the world.
He attended elementary school in Miami-Dade County. By the time Goldberg was ready for middle school, his family decided to drive him daily to private Pine Crest School in northeast Fort Lauderdale.
'I moved there in seventh grade, after I had a couple, I guess we'll say, 'unsuccessful runs' with different charter schools and public schools,' he says.
Pine Crest was 'very supportive' of him jump-starting his professional career, Goldberg says.
'Any time I had to travel for a performance, I would let them know a week or two in advance and it was never any questions. It was just, 'OK, great, we'll catch up either before or when you get back.' It was nothing but encouragement,' he says.
Pine Crest accommodated Goldberg's schedule, according to Larry Mellone, the school's fine arts director.
'In Brandon's case, this meant providing flexibility when professional opportunities arose – for example, when a major performance at a world-class venue like Lincoln Center conflicted with one of his school activities.'
Pine Crest also made sure Goldberg was not treated differently than other students, 'which helped him stay grounded,' says Mellone, adding that despite his expertise in jazz piano, they made sure that his musical education was well-rounded.. . . Providing him instruction and performance opportunities on drum set, double bass, and vibraphone,' says Mellone.
Goldberg was born and raised in Aventura, the older child of Ella and Jason Goldberg.
'They're both CPAs by trade,' says Goldberg. 'And no one in my family is musical. I started playing music because my grandparents played me a lot of music, and the preschool I went to was very musical. They would teach us lessons and sing to us all day, so I always had music around me. But no one in my family was a musician.'
Although not musicians, the Goldbergs quickly realized there was something unusual about their 3-year-old boy.
He'd come home from preschool at Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center, sit down at the family piano and 'plunk out the notes' of songs he sang earlier in the day.
'At first, it sounded like nonsense,' says Goldberg. 'And then, after a while, [my parents] kind of saw that I was able to put it together. And once I figured out the melody, then I started to figure out the chords in the left hand. And once they saw me doing this at 3 years old, they realized that I'm not just fooling around at the piano.'
Ella Goldberg says Brandon was always 'drawn to the music' he heard at synagogue.
'He would pretty much almost recreate at home on a keyboard the entire Friday morning musical Shabbat service,' she says. 'And when his sister was old enough, he would direct her and they would sing. And by age 4 he was accompanying the rabbi and the cantor playing 'Hatikvah' by ear.'
At first, the Goldbergs simply figured their little boy had 'musical abilities,' according to Ella, 'so we started him in piano lessons.'
'To be honest, we didn't realize it was that unusual right away,' she says. 'We figured out he had perfect pitch right around age 4 and that's when we realized that was unusual. The perfect pitch. From then on out, we would just try to find the right teacher to develop him and inspire him.'
Still, even an extremely talented child can quickly get bored during piano lessons.
Says Brandon: 'I had different piano teachers and I never liked any of them, just because it was fun for me and I didn't want to sit and practice scales and have my hands in unnatural positions for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time. I mean, I was 5.'
Obsessed with Sinatra
As a child, Brandon's grandparents introduced him to the music of Frank Sinatra.
'That's how I kind of found jazz. They played me one of the Sinatra movies from the '60s, one of the ones he was singing in, and I immediately became obsessed with it,' he says.
'I immediately became obsessed with the sound, with the songs, with the way that he sang, and I would ask for records of his for my birthday. And I would wake up early and listen to them and wake up the whole house.'
Much of Goldberg's musical childhood, including a 2013 public performance of 'Theme from New York, New York,' is documented by family home videos he's posted on his professional YouTube page.
Goldberg says when he sees and hears that little boy playing, 'it's me. It's just the evolution of me.'
'At a young age I was able to hear the melody, I was able to hear the supporting lines and all of what came under the melody and those arrangements. And I was able to hear the harmony. I was able to improvise. The concept of improvisation was never foreign to me. I always seemed to understand it.'
Jazz camp at age 7
In 2013, Brandon met with jazz pianist and educator Shelton 'Shelly' Berg, dean of University of Miami's Frost School of Music.
At 7, the second-grader auditioned and was accepted to attend Frost School's jazz camp for high school students.
'He was playing with kids twice his age,' says Berg. 'Within a couple of years, he was playing in the top high school group. And he was maybe 9 years old, 10 years old. He knew a lot of songs, he knew all the chord changes. Berg says that he could play John Coltrane's 'Giant Steps.'
'It was quite amazing. 'Giant Steps' is one of the hardest songs to play in jazz . . That's like an 11-year-old violinist saying I want to play the hardest violin concerto.'
Berg describes Goldberg's musical abilities as 'an innate talent.'
'Certainly, in 47 years in higher education, I've seen it a number of times,' says Berg, who after 19 years at UM announced April 14 he is stepping down as dean in May 2026. 'But it's still the 1 percent. It's when talent meets hard work.'
In 2015, the 9-year-old 'Little Piano Man' as he was billed gave a memorized TEDx youth speech in Miami. 'Brandon challenges you to find your instrument and see where it takes you,' the other children were told before his presentation.
For Brandon's 10th birthday in February 2016, his parents took him to New York City, where Sinatra's centennial was celebrated at Lincoln Center with a concert featuring jazz stars singer Kurt Elling and pianist Monty Alexander.
Alexander, who met Brandon a few days before the concert, invited him to the Jazz at Lincoln Center stage, where the boy told applauding concertgoers that he 'loved to listen to Frank Sinatra.'
Next, Alexander and Brandon dueted on the Sinatra standard, 'Fly Me to the Moon.' As they took their bows, Alexander told the cheering audience, 'Brandon! We've got a future, ladies and gentlemen. It's the future!'
'Just wanted to fit in'
Before attending Pine Crest, most of Brandon's young classmates knew little of his special talents, except when he'd appear on national TV shows such as 'Little Big Shots' with Steve Harvey.
'I think they had some kind of understanding that I wasn't just taking piano lessons like everybody else,' he now says.
'I never wanted to advertise it. I always just wanted to fit in. And I always had friends outside of school that were musicians who were always older than me, but I always had people to talk about music with. I have a musical community surrounding me. So I never felt any need to talk about that with my school friends.'
Brandon's social life changed when he changed schools.
'That's actually something that I appreciated the most about Pine Crest,' he says. 'That was the first time that I really had a community of friends that understood what I did.'
Goldberg's younger sister Aubrey, 17, still attends Pine Crest, where she is a cheerleader and in a social entrepreneurship program.
Jazz concerts and albums
Throughout his Pine Crest years, Goldberg appeared locally at venues including Broward Center for the Performing Arts (with musician David Foster), Arts Garage in Delray Beach and Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami. He also played Twin Cities Jazz Festival in St. Paul, Minnesota; Boise Jazz Society in Idaho; Caramoor Jazz Festival in Katonah, New York; Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island; and many times at Dizzy's Club at Lincoln Center.
In March 2019, he released his debut album, 'Let's Play,' which featured diverse standards including Duke Ellington's 'Caravan' and 'In a Sentimental Mood,' and Lennon/McCartney's 'Blackbird.' The album's release party was at Dizzy's.
He's since released two more albums, 'In Good Time' (2021) and 'Live at Dizzy's' in 2024.
Awards and honors
Along the way, Goldberg has received awards and honors including youngest recipient (age 16) of the 2022 Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award; semifinalist in the 2023 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition; and 2024 YoungArts Jazz/Piano Winner with Distinction.
At graduation last year from Pine Crest, Goldberg won the school's Outstanding Artistic Achievement Award at the 2024 commencement ceremony.
Now at Juilliard, he says, 'Everyone here is a musician,' he says. 'As much as I love Pine Crest, I was sitting in these math classes and the science classes with really brilliant minds thinking that I'm never gonna do any of this after high school.'
At Juilliard, he also studies classical piano.
'I'm not doing it for any professional gain,' he says. 'It' s how to play the piano better. It's all music. As much as it's jazz and classical, the end goal is all the same. Get a great sound out of your instrument, be able to do something musically.'
A working musician
In addition to taking classes during the day, Goldberg plays about three hours a night, four or five nights a week at jazz clubs throughout New York City.
Since last fall, Goldberg has also performed at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, in India, the weeklong 25th annual Jazz Cruise out of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Switzerland and Philadelphia.
These days, Goldberg says he rarely listens to music simply for pleasure.
'Frankly, I don't have enough time to really ever just listen to music. Because I'm either always having to learn something for personal gain or personal curiosity,' he says.
Now that Brandon's in college, the one-time prodigy wants to be known as an adult performer.
'I always wanted to be a great musician, regardless of my age,' he says. 'I never wanted age to be the reason why somebody appreciated me as a musician . . The people that I'm closest to and the people that I've really surrounded myself with have always treated me as a real musician, regardless of my age.'
If you go:
WHAT: Brandon Goldberg presented by Miami International Piano Festival
WHERE: Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, 3385 NE 188th St., Aventura
WHEN: 5 p.m. Sunday
TICKETS: $45 and $55, plus fees
INFORMATION: www.miamipianofest.com/concerts/brandon-goldberg
This story was produced by Broward Arts Journalism Alliance (BAJA), an independent journalism program of the Broward County Cultural Division.