Pete Mueller In Concert

Pete Mueller In Concert at SHAMc
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Doors at 7/Music at 7:30 pm

Born in New Jersey to immigrant parents, Muller began his musical journey during his teenage years, picking up regular gigs as a pianist while excelling enough at his academic studies to earn acceptance to Princeton University. A math whiz with a preternatural gift for numbers, he found himself fascinated with the connections between technology and finance, and within a decade of graduating, he’d helped revolutionize the field of quantitative trading, which in turn transformed Wall Street as we know it.

Successful as he was, Muller missed the creative rewards of the arts, so he shifted gears, embarking on a period of equally intense focus on his music that found him busking in the subway, playing small clubs and cafes, and writing his own songs for the first time. After releasing a pair of early albums, he married, moved to California, and became a father. While he eventually returned to the business he’d founded, Muller remained as dedicated as ever to his craft, releasing a series of albums that would lead to dates with the likes of Lisa Loeb, Jimmy Webb, Livingston Taylor, and Paul Thorn along with festival slots everywhere from Telluride to Montreux.

Muller’s unlikely path—and the lessons he’s learned from it—inform much of One Last Dance, which opens with the bittersweet “New York In the Rain.” Lush and atmospheric, the track captures the feeling of isolation that comes with disappearing in a crowd. Rather than succumbing to loneliness or despair, though, it insists on finding beauty and hope in even the loneliest of places. “Some things can last a lifetime / Some things just wash away,” Muller sings. “Here I am again / Another face in a town full of strangers / Always changing.” Change turns out to be a blessing on the album: the charming “Dream Small” finds happiness through a shift in perspective; the stirring “Moments” learns to trade longing and nostalgia for gratitude and mindfulness; the buoyant “No Fear No More” casts off doubt and insecurity in favor of living a more honest and authentic life.