Christopher Berg

Guitarist Christopher Berg received his training at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, in master classes with Andrés Segovia at the University of Southern California, and at the Schola Cantorum Basilensis in Switzerland. He has performed recitals in Carnegie Recital Hall and Merkin Hall in New York in addition to hundreds of recital and concerto appearances throughout the United States including the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago.

He is a Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina where he directs the classical guitar program. During 1999–2000, he was honored by the University of South Carolina as a recipient of a Michael J. Mungo Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching; in 2003, he was awarded the Cantey Outstanding Faculty Award by the School of Music for performance, research, and teaching. In 2003, his former students created the Christopher Berg Guitar Endowment Fund at USC in his honor, which supports The Christopher Berg Guitar Award presented annually to an outstanding undergraduate guitar student in the School of Music at the University of South Carolina.

He has been honored by the National Endowment for the Arts as a recipient of a Solo Recitalist Fellowship and by the South Carolina Arts Commission as a recipient of two Solo Artist Fellowships. The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC) called his playing “a stellar display of guitar virtuosity” and The State (Columbia, SC) found his performance of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez “electrifying . . . hugely enjoyable and freshly played.”

The Pilgrim Forest, his recording of original compositions for solo guitar, has been released on Laughing Heart Records. Critics have praised it as “a journey through a new geography . . . nothing less than radiant and compelling,” (The State) and an “uncharted forest of music that is free-flowing, vibrant, expansive and modern—even postmodern.” (The Free Times).

He is the author of Mastering Guitar Technique and Giuliani Revisited (Mel Bay Publications), Practicing Music by Design: Historic Virtuosi on Peak Performance (Routledge), and The Classical Guitar Companion (Oxford University Press).