Karl Berger, PhD
Composer/Arranger/Conductor/Pianist/Vibraphonist/Consultant
Karl Berger is the co-founder and artistic director of the Creative Music Foundation, the nonprofit corporation that runs Creative Music Studio programs. He co-founded the organization with Ornette Coleman and Ingrid Sertso with the goal of exploring musical elements that are common to all the world’s music forms. He has shared this philosophy with musicians and listeners around the world in concerts, presentations, workshops, articles and concerts.
Berger is a six-time winner of the Downbeat Critics Poll as a jazz soloist, recipient of numerous Composition Awards (commissions by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, European Radio and Television, including WDR, NDR, SWF, Radio France, Rai Italy and the SWF-Prize 1994). He has also been a Professor of Composition, Artist-in- Residence at universities, schools and festivals worldwide, holding a PhD in Music Esthetics.
Berger became noted for his innovative arrangements for recordings by Jeff Buckley (Grace), Natalie Merchant (Ophelia), Better Than Ezra, The Cardigans, Jonatha Brooke, Buckethead, Bootsie Collins, The Swans, Sly + Robbie, Angelique Kidjo and others; and for his collaborations with producers Bill Laswell, Alan Douglas (Operazone), Peter Collins, Andy Wallace, Craig Street, Alain Mallet, Malcolm Burn, Bob Marlett and many others in Woodstock, New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Paris and Rome.
He recorded and performed with Don Cherry, Lee Konitz, John McLaughlin, Gunther Schuller, the Mingus Epitaph Orchestra, Dave Brubeck, Ingrid Sertso, Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell, Ray Anderson, Carlos Ward, Pharoah Sanders, Blood Ulmer, Hozan Yamamoto and many others at festivals and concerts in the US, Canada, Europe, Africa, India, Phillippines, Japan, Mexico and Brazil.
His recordings and arrangements appear on the Atlantic, Axiom, Black Saint, Blue Note, Capitol, CBS, Columbia Double Moon, Douglas Music, Elektra, EMI, Enja, Island, JVC, Knitting Factory, In&Out, MCA, Milestone, Polygram, Pye, RCA, SONY, Stockholm, Vogue lables, among others.
