About Celia

Celia Berk is an award-winning vocalist whose recordings have attracted listeners around the world. She has made memorable appearances at Carnegie Hall, Jazz At Lincoln Center, Birdland Theater, 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.”

Celia’s album MANHATTAN SERENADE received the 2017 LaMott Friedman Award. It was arranged and conducted by Alex Rybeck and co-produced by Tony and Grammy Award-winning sound designer 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.

At the height of the pandemic, Celia released two singles. Michael Silversher’s “A Simple Prayer” is described by Celia as “an orison for troubled times.” Stephen Mosher of 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.” She followed that with “Holiday Bells Medley”, her first holiday recording. Arranged by jazz pianist Jon Weber, it features trumpet, French horn and woodwind arrangements by CJ Camerieri and Steve Kenyon. In 2021, Celia released “Still, Still, Still”. Her second holiday recording, it features cellist Mairi Dorman-Phaneuf.

With pianist Sean Gough, Celia created COMES LOVE, a program of songs about the highs, lows and in-betweens of love, including the kinds of hidden gems by great songwriters that have become Celia’s trademark. She is currently preparing a new album featuring those songs. Her new cabaret show, ON MY WAY TO YOU: IMPROBABLE STORIES THAT INSPIRED AN UNLIKELY PATH, debuted in 2022. It is directed by Mark Nadler with music direction by Tedd Firth.

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