About Celia

Celia Berk is an award-winning vocalist whose recordings have attracted listeners around the world. She is known for her intimate interpretations, warm cello sound, and affinity for hidden gems by great songwriters. Celia has made memorable appearances at Carnegie Hall, Jazz At Lincoln Center, Birdland Theater, 54 Below, The Town Hall and the National Arts Club. Celia has been praised by some of the most prominent champions of The Great American Songbook.

…Michael Feinstein says,

Rex Reed calls her “One of the best singers I’ve heard in a long time.” And Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times, “Ms. Berk makes you feel about New York the same way a Cole Porter song makes you feel about Paris.”

In Fall 2023, Celia released her first Holiday EP, HOLIDAY SPIRIT: 3 Songs of Joy, Wonder & Hope. It is comprised of three songs recorded and released during the pandemic. “Holiday Bells Medley” is arranged by jazz pianist Jon Weber and features trumpet, French horn and woodwind arrangements by CJ Camerieri and Steve Kenyon. “Still, Still, Still” features cellist Mairi Dorman-Phaneuf. And Celia is joined by music director Alex Rybeck for Michael Silversher’s “A Simple Prayer”. Of this first commercial recording, BroadwayWorld.com wrote, “Mr. Silversher’s composition seems to inspire in Ms. Berk a level of connection that is almost otherworldly — perhaps it is the time in which we are living, maybe it’s the marriage of artist to art, but this will come to be known as one of Celia Berk’s great achievements.”

In 2022, Celia released her widely anticipated third album, NOW THAT I HAVE EVERYTHING. Arranger/pianist Tedd Firth brought a Nat King Cole Trio feel to the recording, which explores the ways we try – successfully and unsuccessfully – to connect our heart to someone else’s. In his Liner Notes, author and journalist Will Friedwald wrote, “Celia Berk makes us realize, in a way few singers can, that love is, in fact, never ever the same.” John Hoglund wrote in Cabaret Scenes, “She’s found a liberating style of expression as did the great stylists of the past and is well on the way to creating her own niche.” Co-Produced by Tony and Grammy Award-winning sound designer Scott Lehrer, the album features the kinds of hidden gems by great songwriters that are Celia’s trademark. Many of those songs were featured in COMES LOVE, a 2019 show Celia created with pianist Sean Gough. NOW THAT I HAVE EVERYTHING was included on the 2023 Grammy Awards Preliminary Ballot, named one of the Top 10 Vocalist Recordings of 2022 by The Broadway Radio Show, and nominated for the BroadwayWorld and LaMott Friedman Awards.

Also in 2022, Celia debuted her new cabaret show, ON MY WAY TO YOU: Improbable Stories That Inspired An Unlikely Path, directed by Mark Nadler with music direction by Tedd Firth. Marilyn Lester of Theater Pizzazz called it “An enchanting show, executed with abundant smarts, humor and grace, and terrific choices of music known and unknown.” Stephen Mosher of BroadwayWorld declared it “Tour-De-Force Cabaret….This is cabaret in its truest and purest form.” It was nominated for BroadwayWorld and MAC Awards.

Celia’s album MANHATTAN SERENADE received the 2017 LaMott Friedman Award. It was arranged and conducted by Alex Rybeck and co-produced by Scott Lehrer, the team behind her debut album YOU CAN’T RUSH SPRING. Lyricist David Zippel (whose “The Broadway Song” written with Cy Coleman received its first commercial recording) wrote in the album notes, “A tribute to her hometown, this collection is anything but renditions of the obvious New York songs. MANHATTAN SERENADE is curated: a connoisseur’s compilation of one exquisite, undiscovered musical gem after another.” YOU CAN’T RUSH SPRING and Celia’s solo cabaret debut, directed by Jeff Harnar, earned Celia a 2015 Bistro Award: Vocalist; 2015 MAC Award: New York Debut – Female; 2015 BroadwayWorld Award for Best New York Cabaret Debut; and The 2015 Margaret Whiting Award.

Celia’s recordings are available on Apple Music, Amazon, Pandora and other major platforms. They are released by Gramercy Nightingale Music Co.