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Danielle Friedman
Danielle Friedman is an Israeli pianist, composer, and improviser currently based in Berlin.
Musically and geographically she crosses and transcends borders, bringing together different influences. Her music flows between Jazz, Classical, and lyrical as well as rhythmic free improvisation, riddled with imagination.
She is associated with these projects: Tangerine, Lisa Hoppe's YSOP, King Josephine, Zahir, Maura MoC, and Danielle Friedman Trio.
Danielle’s debut album "School of Fish” was recorded with her New York Trio in Brooklyn in 2017, with Aron Caceres on bass and David Jimenez on drums. The album was released alongside a short European tour in 2018 and received excellent reviews from acclaimed magazines.
With dancer and choreographer Doron Perk, she formed D&DF&P - a free-form duet using music and dance as languages. The duo debuted in 2017 in Dixon’s Place New York City, and continued to perform on International stages, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Kunstkooperative Berlin, Ha’teiva TLV and Camden Fringe Festival. The project received a young artists scholarship from the Israeli culture ministry in 2019.
Inclined to explore a new musical context, she moved to Berlin in 2018, where she has been working on and collaborating with many projects;
During the pandemic, she founded Zahir with musicians Lisa Hoppe and Lucia Boffo. Embracing their multiple belongings and interconnections with each other, they developed tenderly improvised, bold, and humorous original music, rooted in jazz and spinning freely wherever their associations would take them.
Shortly after, Friedman joined freshly formed Lisa Hoppe’s YSOP - an international band of musicians from Switzerland, France, Germany, and Israel. The unorthodox line-up (for jazz at least), consisting of vocals, violin/cello, trombone, piano, and upright bass, melts together acoustic and electrified sounds and creates an unusual statement of chamber music. Together they won the Transnational Jazz competition in 2021 and have since toured and recorded their debut album “Faking an inperfect Utopia” - nominated for Deutscher Jazzpreis ‘Best Debut Album of the Year 2024’.
“Weary Gold”, a solo piano album released in 2023, is Friedman's sophomore album, following her debut trio album, for which she received a grant from the German foundation Zurückgeben Stiftung in 2021 for the creation of this album. “Weary Gold” was conceived during Covid times, and it comprises mostly original compositions, as well as some arrangements of well-known Israeli songs composed to the words of the poet Leah Goldberg. Throughout the songs, both original and arranged, there is a constant dialogue with the poet Leah Goldberg’s themes - nature, longing of the past, childhood, loneliness, and love. Goldberg and Friedman intermittently deal with the question - of what and where is home.
Since 2024, Friedman has been embarking on a duo project "Tangerine" with Amsterdam based saxophonist Aviv Noam. Shortly after receiving a composition scholarship from Amarte Fonds (NL) the released their debut EP "Time Without Disasters" in May 2025.
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Danielle Friedman: Weary Gold
by Mike Jurkovic
Even the most casual listen to Weary Gold, Israeli born pianist Danielle Friedman's sophomore offering, might not convince said casual listener that this was only Friedman's second outing. It is too accomplished and sure. And a solo outing to boot. There are host of synchronized moving parts in Friedman's sense of musical calisthenics, composition, and improvisation. Traits that come to the fore mightily and consequently on Weary Gold's emblematic opener “Sweet Home of Var." Once translated, the Swedish ...
Continue ReadingDanielle Friedman: School of Fish
by Mike Jurkovic
It's taken a while to review School of Fish, the very engaging debut by pianist Danielle Friedman because it's so easy to get carried away by the imaginative leaps and bounds she and her trio take in pursuit of her musical wanderlust. So you listen. Then listen again. And again. Written entirely by the Israeli born / NY schooled / German resident and ably abetted by bassist Aron Caceres and drummer David Jimenez, Friedman's School of Fish comes ...
Continue ReadingDanielle Friedman Trio: School of Fish
by Dan McClenaghan
Danielle Friedman is an Israeli-born, Germany-based pianist who offers up her debut recording with School Of Fish. Some musicians take a handful of recordings to find their voice. Friedman and her trio--with bassist Aron Caceres and drummer David Jimenez--have done it coming out of the gate. The album kicks off with “Shalom Ani Danielle," an achingly beautiful ballad that exploits repetition and a dynamic group interplay. “5 Trolls," the second tune of this all-Friedman-originals set, opens with a ...
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"... It's so easy to get carried aways by the imaginative leaps and bounds she and her trio take in pursuit of her musical wanderlust. So you listen. Then listen again. and again." - Mike Jurkovich, All About Jazz
“...she sounds like a force of nature with ideas flowing as if they are compelled to surge from her mind’s mind through to the nerve endings of her fingers. But there is something more: Miss Friedman’s music is born of a wellspring of great sensitivity.” — Raul Da Gama, JazzdaGama
Primary Instrument
Piano
Location
Berlin
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Music
Dread Change
From: School of FishBy Danielle Friedman
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