Routledge has recently released Christopher Berg’s new book, Practicing Music by Design: Historic Virtuosi on Peak Performance. In this book, the author explores the relationship between the ways in which legendary virtuosi practiced and studied—documented by their writings or writings about them—and modern research on peak performance. Although written by a guitarist, this book is not instrument-specific and will be useful to all musicians working toward the acquisition of high-level skill and artistry. The ways in which great musicians of the past anticipated modern research is stunning. The book is available on Amazon worldwide, Kindle, and retail outlets throughout the world. The Taylor & Francis site for the book has abstracts for each chapter of the book.

In November of 2019, Oxford University Press will release Christopher Berg’s The Classical Guitar Companion. This work features over 200 examples, etudes, pieces, and exercises organized to help serious guitar students better navigate the shoals of becoming well-trained and expressive artists. The organization of material allows teachers and students to devise individual curricula and work in multiple areas simultaneously; the level of scholarly detail helps students understand historical fingering practices and connect these (and other material) to ease in performance; and the book Includes detailed explanations, along with examples and exercises for practice, of areas of advanced guitar technique not usually encountered in traditional guitar methods. The author brings together his perspectives as an active performing artist and as a teacher who has trained hundreds of guitarists. The Oxford University Press site for the book has more information in addition to a table of contents, which gives a sense of the scope of the book. It is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Christopher is a professor of music at the University of South Carolina where he directs the classical guitar program. His students have won top prizes in regional and national competitions. 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 and 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 Endowment Fund at USC in his honor, which supports The Christopher Berg Guitar Award presented annually to an outstanding undergraduate guitar student at USC. In 2008 he was named a Carolina Distinguished Professor.

He 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. His New York debut concert at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1981 was praised by the New York Times for its “special sensitivity.” Recent tours have included recitals at the New England Guitar Festival in Boston, the Radford University International Guitar Festival in Virginia, the Appalachian Guitar Festival in Boone, NC, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

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.”