Hailed by The New York Times as “both a virtuoso with herculean technical command and a sensitive introspective artist,” Jamaican-born pianist Dr.Paul Shaw, a top prize-winner in the William Kapell International Piano Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, has performed to high critical acclaim at prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York; the Kennedy Center and the Hall of the Americas in Washington, D.C.; Beethovenhalle in Bonn; the Manoel Theatre in Valletta, Malta; Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica in San José; and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. 

Dr. Shaw has appeared as soloist with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, Dayton Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony, Shreveport Symphony, Cape Cod Symphony, Kenwood Symphony and Minnesota orchestras and collaborated with conductors Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, William Eddins, George Manahan, Jorge Mester, Lukas Foss, Mark Russell Smith, Pamela Mayorga, Yuri Ivan and others.  As a chamber musician, he has appeared at the Marlboro Music Festival and performed with members of the Minnesota and Saint Paul Chamber orchestras.

Since 2010, Shaw and musician friends from Japan, China, South Korea, France, Great Brit­ain, Russia, and the United States of America have been engaged in a series of collaborative concerts to promote world peace and discourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons – in New York (2010), Hiroshima (2013), Paris (2014), Tokyo (2015), and again in Hiroshima (2016) and Paris (2018). 

Paul Shaw was educated at The Juilliard School, on full scholarship, where he earned the Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Piano Performance under the tutelage of William Masselos.  He is Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Minnesota School of Music, and a Steinway Artist.

Paul Shaw can be heard on compact disc in solo recitals of classical music: Live from New York, It’s Paul Shaw; Caribbean Art Music: Le Grand Tour, featured on a WQXR worldwide web-cast; and in a release on the Clarion label playing James P. Johnson’s Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody for piano solo and orchestra.