About
Frank Carlberg is a composer, arranger, pianist and educator whose extensive body of work ranges from small ensembles to big bands, duos to symphony orchestras. His myriad projects, often informed by an interest in poetry, modern dance, visual art and other disciplines, reveal a stylistic fluency and boundless imagination that enable him “to create a space where bop, cool and free impulses intersect” (The WholeNote, Toronto).
A native of Finland based in New York, Carlberg has performed and recorded with musical giants Steve Lacy, Bob Brookmeyer, Roswell Rudd and Kenny Wheeler, and studied with the likes of Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Bley, Ran Blake, Geri Allen and Jacques-Louis Monod. Since 1999 he has served on the faculty of New England Conservatory, where he earned his Master of Music degree.
Furthering the legacy of his esteemed teachers, Carlberg has left an imprint on such former students as composer Nicholas Urie; pianists Vardan Ovsepian, Leo Genovese, Carmen Staaf, Julian Shore and Isaac Wilson; saxophonists Noah Preminger and Brian Landrus; bassists Kim Cass and Simon Willson; trumpeter David Adewumi, and many more. Carlberg also directs the NEC Jazz Composers’ Workshop Ensemble, allowing student composers to hear their works for large jazz orchestra realized in live performance.
Carlberg had the benefit of early classical piano lessons in his native Helsinki. He went on to formal studies at Oulunkylä Conservatory, making the move to Boston in 1984 to attend Berklee College of Music, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree. At Berklee he played with fellow students including Jim Black, Chris Cheek, Antonio Hart, Sam Newsome, Chris Speed and Ben Street, as well as faculty members George Garzone, Hal Crook, Herb Pomeroy and John LaPorta. During summers Carlberg toured in Europe extensively with a variety of groups.
After moving to New York in 1992, Carlberg became enmeshed in the city’s thriving jazz and creative music scene. He became a founding member of Brooklyn’s Douglass Street Music Collective and organized the borough’s annual Gowanus Jazz Fest from 2010-2014. Meanwhile his work continued to grow in scope, garnering support from Chamber Music America’s New Works Commission Grant and French-American Collaboration Grant, as well as fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo and the Millay Arts Residency.
Carlberg founded Red Piano Records in 2008 as a home for his music and that of likeminded colleagues, including vocalist Christine Correa, his wife and frequent creative partner. His Word Circus quintet, featuring Correa and a steady cast of top-tier bandmates, draws from a repertoire of over 150 songs to texts from 20th- and 21st-century poets including Wallace Stevens, Ken Mikolowski, Robert Creeley, Kenneth Rexroth, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and more. Correa’s adventurousness and technical ability have inspired Carlberg to draw compositionally from other textual sources such as medical journals, legal documents and fragments of the Bill of Rights.
The band’s output includes the eponymous Word Circus, Big Enigmas (for septet), State of the Union, In the Land of Art, No Money in Art (“Carlberg leads the charge with an acute sense of the lyrical and the dramatic” – Raul DaGama), Uncivilized Ruminations (“…trenchant humor, a bit of absurdity, and bittersweet reflections on reality” – Eyal Hareuveni), The American Dream (“perfectly executed through & through” – Rotcod Zzaj), and the octet release Variations on a Summer Day (“…brilliantly captures [Wallace] Stevens’ imagery” – All Music Guide).
An instrumental quintet album, Dream Machine, featuring Hery Paz, Leo Genovese, John Hébert and Dan Weiss, is slated for release in 2025. The album draws from literary, cinematic and biographical inspirations.
Carlberg’s albums with Latin Grammy-winning vocalist Roxana Amed, Los Trabajos Y Las Noches and La Sombra de Su Sombra (both inspired by the poetry of Alejandra Pizarnik), have also garnered wide acclaim (“Carlberg matches the fragile, crystalline beauty of the lyrics with a dancing right hand as if singing in gentle colloquy with Amed’s voice” – Latin Jazz Net).
As leader of the Frank Carlberg Large Ensemble, Carlberg performs originals as well as arrangements and re-compositions of standards and folk materials, as heard on the 2024 release Elegy For Thelonious and its 2019 predecessor Monk Dreams, Hallucinations and Nightmares (4 1/2 and 5 stars respectively from DownBeat). With Tivoli Trio, joined by bassist John Hébert and drummer Gerald Cleaver, Carlberg plays an eclectic mix of original music drawn from cinematic and circus inspirations (“pushes the boundaries of the traditional piano trio” – Mark Corroto, All About Jazz).
Carlberg’s deep affinity for duo playing is evident on his releases with Christine Correa (Ugly Beauty, “gorgeous and sophisticated” per the Boston Globe), Ran Blake (Gray Moon), Leo Genovese (Shadows and Reflections), Klaus Suonsaari (Offering, Fallingwater), Gabriel Bolaños (Charity and Love, the forthcoming EUNOIA) and Noah Preminger (Whispers and Cries, “rich in nuance and elevated by artistic affinity,” per Dan Bilawsky of All About Jazz).
In addition, Carlberg’s work as a sideman includes such standout titles as Bob Brookmeyer/Kenny Wheeler Quintet’s Island, Andrew Rathbun’s The Idea of North and Sculptures (the latter co-led by Kenny Wheeler), Daniel Hersog Jazz Orchestra albums Night Devoid of Stars and Open Spaces, Owen Howard’s Drum Lore and More Lore, Brian Landrus’s Generations and Mirage, Chris Zuar’s Musings, Steve Grover’s Variations, Breath and Blackbird Suite, and many others. He has also contributed as a producer to numerous projects by artists such as Egberto Gismonti/Gaia Wilmer, Jason Yeager, Brian Landrus etc.