The Piano Guys

In case you don’t already know them, it’s not difficult to find beautifully shot footage of The Piano Guys, pianist Jon Schmidt and cellist Steven Sharp Nelson, playing a good variety of stirring music.  If you do know them, you might wonder how their creative video approach to music would translate to the stage.  The experience was, in a word, amazing.

Playing a great collection of beloved hits, originals, and movie soundtracks (often combined with classical masterpieces) in a great variety of inventive styles, The Piano Guys poured out two and a half hours of sublime playful inventiveness, making the music of centuries more entertaining than I could have imagined.  In the hands of these musical masters, Bach, Vivaldi, Zimmer, Morricone, Michael Jackson, and Christina Perri were amongst many whose music featured in a highly entertaining potpourri, and the duo’s tales of important events in their lives flowed so naturally into the following musical wonders that the evening passed far too quickly.

Of the performance’s many interesting aspects, several lay in Schmidt and Nelson’s use of technology.  A very large screen magnified the audience view from no fewer than eight cameras.  And taking an already remarkable range of sounds emanating from Nelson’s various cellos, altering them a little, and synching the duo’s live performance with gorgeous footage from outdoor performances in spectacular locations and permitting occasional addition of a few more of Nelson’s cellos added to the concert’s store of surprises.  Schmidt and Nelson’s expressive faces and total bodily involvement in their music, practically dancing with their instruments, added something extra to performances that oozed heart and soul, and the environments in their performance footage added another dimension again.


What is remarkable is that the show’s highly polished playfulness — Schmidt and Nelson are both very funny — detracted not at all from their very evidently genuine love for what they do and their appreciation of their audiences, their supporters, and their good fortunes.

If you can catch a performance by The Piano Guys, it will be a memory to revisit for a long time.

John P. Harvey

The Piano Guys: Jon Schmidt (piano) and Steven Sharp Nelson (cello).