An accomplished jazz pianist from Israel, Shai Maestro first gained widespread attention in 2008 as a member of bassist Avishai Cohen’s trio. He subsequently launched a solo trajectory that yielded the 2012 release The Road to Ithaca and, six years later, his initial ECM outing The Dream Thief.
Maestro entered the world in Israel in 1987. He took up the piano at five, displayed prodigious ability, and completed his studies at the Thelma Yellin High School of Performing Arts in Givataim, Israel. While enrolled there he captured first prize at the Jazz Signs National Jazz Ensembles Competition in both 2002 and 2003 and received jazz-piano scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Fund. Following graduation he participated in Berklee College of Music’s five-week Summer Performance Program in Boston; although offered a full scholarship to remain, he declined and instead became the pianist in Cohen’s trio alongside drummer Mark Guiliana.
During his tenure with Cohen the group toured extensively and Maestro made his first recorded appearances on the 2008 albums Gently Disturbed and Sensitive Hours. Aurora appeared the next year—the same year Maestro moved to New York City—followed by Seven Seas in 2011. In 2012 he issued the debut recording of his own trio, Shai Maestro, on Laborie Jazz, with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Ziv Ravitz completing the lineup. Over the ensuing two years the trio performed worldwide, appearing on bills alongside Chick Corea, Tigran Hamasyan, Esperanza Spalding, and additional artists. Maestro returned to the studio in 2012 for the trio’s second album, The Road to Ithaca, and continued the sequence with Untold Stories in 2015 and The Stone Skipper in 2016. He also contributed to singer Theo Bleckmann’s 2017 release Elegy. His ECM debut, The Dream Thief, arrived in 2018 and again featured Roeder together with drummer Ofri Nehemya. For the 2021 album Human, Maestro enlarged the trio by adding American trumpeter Phillip Dizak, a frequent New York collaborator. Recorded at Studios la Buissonne under producer Manfred Eicher, the sessions comprised ten original compositions by Maestro plus a version of Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood.”
