Brandon Goldberg, pianist 

A piano prodigy, Florida-based Brandon Goldberg has evolved into a confident musician who is, according to DownBeat magazine, “in possession of gifts many fail to ever acquire: an unassailable technique, advanced harmonic understanding, a deep sense of swing and, most impressively, a clarity and plethora of ideas executed to near-perfection.” Only 18 years old, Goldberg has performed at leading jazz festivals and clubs in the US, and is a 2024 YoungArts Winner with Distinction and a semifinalist at the 2023 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition. Goldberg has performed several times on national television in the US, including a recent appearance on Good Morning America. On the release of his third album Brandon Goldberg Trio Live at Dizzy’s, multiple Grammy award-winning producer David Foster said about the young pianist: “Heart, heart, heart, along with, of course, his blazing chops and phenomenal instincts.”

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Gonzalo Rubalcaba, pianist and composer

British conductor Simon Rattle has said that Gonzalo Rubalcaba is “the most gifted pianist on the planet.” The three-time Grammy award-winning pianist and composer originally wanted to become a drummer but started studying the piano when he was eight “just to please his mother” and on graduating, he worked as both a drummer and pianist in venues across Havana. In 1985, when Dizzy Gillespie encountered Rubalcaba’s musical prowess, he remarked that the young musician was “the greatest pianist I’ve heard in the past 10 years.” A year later, his talent was noticed by American bandleader Charlie Haden and then Blue Note Records president, Bruce Lundvall. Over the next couple of years, Rubalcaba was part of some stellar recordings that set the stage for a successful career in the US, where he now lives. Rubalcaba’s music is influenced by Afro-Cuban folk, classical and popular music. “I used to listen to huaracha, bolero, rumba, all the typical Cuban styles but at the same time, I listened a lot of classical music because of my brothers ... I was also surrounded by Afro-Cuban music and its roots,” he said in an interview with Billboard. He has won Grammys for Nocturne (2001) and Land of the Sun (2004), both collections of Latin ballads and boleros recorded with Haden. In 2022, he won the Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Skyline.

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Matthew Whitaker, pianist

When Dr. Charles Limb put Matthew Whitaker in the scanner at an MRI facility in California, he discovered that the young jazz pianist’s entire brain, including the visual cortex, lights up in response to music. Blind since birth, doctors had given less than a 50 per cent chance of survival to Whitaker. Music, however, became an early companion to Whitaker who would crawl towards music as a baby. His father told CBS News, “Matt was playing the chords and the melody of the song at the same [time.] He hadn’t had a lesson or anything. And he was three years old. So my question was, ‘Okay, who showed him how to do that?’” A bonafide child prodigy, Whitaker has been performing at prestigious venues around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center. When he was 10, he served as the opening performer for Stevie Wonder’s induction into the Apollo Theater’s Hall of Fame. When Whitaker was told about his brain scan and asked what he thought it meant, he simply said: “I love music.”

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Veronica Swift, vocalist

According to The Wall Street Journal, Veronica Swift “has a miraculous voice, musical ability and technique, as well as an innate gift for entertaining a crowd.” Having grown up in a household of passionate musicians—her mother is banker-turned jazz singer Stephanie Nakasian and her father is the late jazz pianist Hod O’Brien—Swift has always been immersed in the culture of jazz music. At nine, she released her first album, Veronica’s House of Jazz, and began performing with her parents. By 13, she had released her second album, It’s Great to Be Alive. This was also the time she was heavily influenced by the rock band Queen. It was while watching Freddie Mercury perform that Swift realised she wanted to do something similar. “Something larger than life and theatrical rock and roll, putting all of these genres together to create one’s own artistry,” she has said. This churning for innovation comes through in her 2023 album Veronica Swift, in which she has explored French and Italian opera, European classical music, bossa nova, blues, industrial rock, funk and vaudeville. American jazz critic Bill Milkowski has said of Swift that she has perfect pitch and phrasing. Swift has performed with Emmet Cohen and has toured with the Benny Green Trio and with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

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This article was originally published in the August 2024 issue of ON Stage.

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