Oli Rockberger - Working Hard and Loving it

Jazz, funk, gospel, R&B pianist, keyboardist and singer-songwriter Oliver Joel Rockberger says, "My musical heroes are Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Sting, James Taylor and Stevie Wonder. Their music has moved millions of people, changed lives and improved society. These artists keep me on track when I lose my way; I need only to put on a CD by any one of them and I remember why I do this."

Oliver, who was born 23 years ago in London, England, said his mother has told him, "The first sounds I heard and loved as a kid were those of Stevie Wonder.

"My parents realized that I would have to come to music in my own way. They encouraged me to compose my own tunes and experiment with different instruments, including guitar, violin, drums, and alto sax.

"But my guitar teacher felt that my calling was the piano. He explained to me that any one instrument would take several lifetimes to master. I now really understand what he meant!

"Music," says Oliver, "was always something I loved to do. I just did it. When you're young, I think it's really important to just do whatever it is you do without worrying how good or bad you are! Freedom from this kind of pressure really helped my musical growth."

Oliver performed professionally even while in high school - with a quartet of older student musicians, he performed gigs at a London Cafe, and at a brasserie in Ealing, London. To this early start of his professional career, he can also add "a few high-profile things: I played the opening night of a chique London west-end restaurant and performed at Dave Stewart's (of the Eurythmics) Christmas party after he saw me perform in my north London school."

During his high school years, Oliver performed in a lot of extracurricular concerts. "The head of the music program at school also rehearsed small jazz-based groups which I was in from ages 13-18. From him I learned what it means to be tight, how to get results in musical situations, how to rehearse effectively, how to lead. And with his help I started a trio. The bassist and drummer were slightly younger students at my school."

At 17, Oliver received a scholarship to the Five Week Summer Performance Program at internationally well-known Boston's Berklee College of Music.

"Blown away by the quality of the teaching there," Oliver flew to Barcelona, Spain during the winter of 1997, to audition for the opportunity to win an undergraduate scholarship to the school during Berklee's international World Scholarship Tour.

To be considered, he had submitted a tape of original material including vocal songs. For the audition itself, he performed original compositions for solo piano, two jazz standards, a blues and some sight-reading he was given. "The committee knew the range of what I could do from my preliminary tape. This was their chance to see if I could really play and produce the goods in the flesh, in performance, under pressure.

"I was so overwhelmed by pride, excitement, fear, anxiety, and disbelief that I cried when I read the letter that I'd won the Lee and Susan Berk Full Tuition Award."

He deferred the scholarship for one year to prepare himself "musically, and to some extent, mentally, for going to Berklee." With his former guitar teacher, a Berklee graduate, Oliver studied harmony and improvisation.

"I practiced 3-6 hours most days, and created a portfolio of compositions. I was in bands, and did gigs for experience and for money. I played regularly in a London restaurant for 6 months, trying to get to a level musically where I would be better placed in my Berklee studies."

His hard work paid off. "As well as moving me forward musically, the studies helped me to advance-place into higher-level courses as an entering Berklee student in the fall of 1999, which meant that my first semester was immediately stimulating and challenging.

In his first year, Oliver was a winner of the Jazz Performance Award, and The Singer/Songwriter Competition, for his original song, "This Old Man". In 2001 he was selected to travel to Japan to perform with a series of concerts with a student quartet, culminating in a performance at the Phoenix Jazz Festival. He earned a Summa Cum Laude Diploma in 2002.

Oliver has since formed another trio, The Oli Rockberger Band, a vehicle for his original material. The group, which fuses jazz, folk and R & B, and performs in Boston and New York, hopes to record professionally in the near future and to get bookings in the UK and around Europe. "Music is unlike a 9 to 5 job," Oliver notes. "It is ongoing - all the time. Beyond the creative aspects, such as piano practicing, vocal practice, rehearsals, composing and recording, is the business side of things, such as mailing out packages, keeping up with contacts and negotiating fees for gigs.

"It's easy to get totally consumed with your art, to live in an inner world, but your behavior and interactions with fellow human beings play as big a role in the art you create as the hours of practice you put into it. It's so important to be able to relate to people with your art and you can't do this by being on your own the whole time." Oliver offers this advice: "Listen to teachers, mentors and friends, and support the people you love in what they do and you will get it back.

"Music requires tremendous dedication, patience and resilience. It's important to work hard - but if you love it enough, it doesn't feel so much like work. You do what you have to do because it's part of who you are." www.olirockberger.com

Elizabeth Eidlitz
Freelance Writer

* Reprinted from Positive Teens Magazine Volume 5 Issue 3, May/June 2003

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