Born 1983 in Los Angeles, CA to a family of professional musicians, Jared Schonig began playing the piano at age 5 and the drums at age 14. While a young student in Los Angeles, Jared had numerous opportunities to perform professionally and with various all-star bands, and won 4 Downbeat Student Music Awards, including a “Best Soloist” award during his senior year of high school. Jared attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, during which time he received 3 more Downbeat Student Music Awards (including “Best Soloist” and “Top Collegiate Combo”) before receiving his BA in 2005. While still a student, Jared also performed with vibraphonist Joe Locke and Dr. Lonnie Smith at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, among other venues.

Now living in Brooklyn, Jared stays busy performing and recording in New York’s jazz, rock, pop and Broadway communities at renowned venues including The Blue Note, Birdland, The Jazz Standard, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Since his arrival in New York, Jared has performed and/or recorded internationally as a sideman with Wynton Marsalis, Fred Hersch, Wycliffe Gordon, Dave Liebman, Charles Pillow, and Bob Brookmeyer, among others. Jared has recently had the pleasure of subbing in on tours with the Kurt Elling Band. He currently tours with the Grammy-award winning vocal jazz group The New York Voices, and performed with the group as a featured artist at The Kennedy Center in 2012. On Broadway, Jared currently plays or has played onstage for Godspell, American Idiot (Green Day) and for Pulitzer Prize Winner Next to Normal, and in the orchestras for Chaplin, Bring It On, Ghost: The Musical, Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark, Grease and the off-Broadway productions of Everyday Rapture featuring Sherie Rene Scott and The Marvelous Wonderettes. He currently holds the drum chair for the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of Pippin. Jared was recently invited as a guest soloist for a performance of composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s orchestral work Penelope, featuring vocalist Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond.

As the co-leader of The Wee Trio, Jared has released three studio albums with a fourth live album on the way. In addition to recent appearances at the Ottawa and Fox River Jazz Festivals and tour stops at venues including The Green Mill (Chicago), Jazz at The Bistro (St. Louis) and Le Poisson Rouge (New York), the group also teaches jazz clinics for high school and college music programs around the country – in 2012 they served as Artists-in-Residence at Butler University.