Berkshire Style: Brandon Goldberg, Youngest star of the Litchfield Jazz Festival

For the first time in 22 years, Vita Muir, executive and artistic director of the Litchfield Jazz Festival, is breaking her own rule. “I have never put one of the young people from the Jazz Camp on the main stage with the orchestra,” she said. 

But the prodigious talents of 11-year-old pianist Brandon Goldberg of Miami and his complete lack of nerves when performing, has persuaded Muir to change the rules for once. “I have decided to put him onstage in a controlled situation with the Jazz Festival Orchestra,” she said. “He is so comfortable within his own skin and is an incredibly mature kid.” 

It will not be young Brandon’s first appearance in front of a major audience. He has appeared at Jazz at Lincoln Center at the invitation of Monty Alexander, at the Apollo Theater and the Blue Note Jazz Club as the guest of McCoy Tyner, and on Harry Connick Jr.’s Little Big Shots, where he declared, “the idea of performing excites me.” 

He also said his favorite genre of music is jazz because it “gives me the freedom to do anything.”