Dan Gottfried

Dan Gottfried was born in 1939

Dan Gottfried was born in 1939. He studied piano at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music and won the Mozart piano prize in 1959. In 1962 he earned a degree in economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and then studied law.

He began as a classical pianist and appeared as a soloist with symphony orchestras. He moved to jazz during his army service in the Air Force orchestra. In 1962 he joined the Kol Israel jazz quartet, and in 1965 he left to lead his own groups.

In 1971 he and Albert Piamenta formed the Jazz Workshop quartet, which recorded the first instrumental jazz album in Israel. In 1981 he founded the jazz department at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and in 1985 he set up jazz studies at the Thelma Yellin high school. He also ran jazz series at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Israeli Opera.

In 1987 he helped start the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat and served as its artistic director until 2008. His quintet toured abroad for the Foreign Ministry, including India in 1998 and Italy in 2004. He heads the Israeli Musicians Union and manages the musicians' royalties society.