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Bio
Dan Pugach is a GRAMMY® nominated drummer and composer living in Brooklyn, NY. He was born in Israel and moved to the United States in 2006. He served as the drummer for The Air Force Band in the IDF while attending the Rimon School of Jazz at the same time. He received a Bachelor of Music Degree from Berklee College of Music, where he studied with Terri Lynn Carrington, Hal Crook, and Joe Lovano, and an M.A in music from the City College of New York, where he studied with Mike Holober and Scott Reeves.
He is the leader of The Dan Pugach Nonet, a nine-piece ensemble playing his original music and his arrangements. This ensemble tours regularly and has played at Bird’s Eye Basel, The Zone in Tel Aviv, Blue Note Jazz, The 55bar, Smalls Jazz Club, The Jazz Loft, The Jazz Estate, Stowe Jazz Festival among respected Performing Arts Theaters across the nation.
In 2011 Dan received the ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Award for his Nonet piece “Discourse This!”. In the same year he was selected to participate at the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Residency Program at the Kennedy Center, where he worked with Curtis Fuller, Nathan Davis and George Cables. In 2013 he received another ASCAP Jazz Composer Award for his Nonet piece “Brooklyn Blues”.
His debut 2018 nonet release “Plus One” on UNIT Records has made it to top 20 jazz radio charts and includes Dan’s arrangement of Jolene/Dolly Parton which has been GRAMMY ® nominated for Best Arrangement, Instruments with Vocals, alongside vocalist Nicole Zuraitis.
In 2019 he won the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize/Manny Albam Commission as part of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop.
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“Dan’s playing is Rock solid on drums!”
“The writing is on point, sharp, concise and so is everybody’s playing. Beautiful album.”
“...it’s Pugach’s dynamic drumming that allows so many seemingly disparate styles to cohere into a warm, singular sound.”
“I can’t gush enough about the joyful energy that Dan and his Nonet express in the most open of ways. Dan’s music is thoughtful, exciting and immensely engaging.”
“Pugach is an ace composer and arranger. It is pretty incredible to realized that Plus One is the drummer’s debut album. It sounds fully formed and completely evolved. ”
“... music expansive in scope yet revealing itself in intimate ways, with exquisite writing and pointedly crisp solo statements.”
“His mastery of the music from the subtle inner workings of his horn orchestrations to his command over shaping larger musical statements puts Dan in a league of his own.”
“Do the math: Plus One adds up to Big, Bold, Beautiful!”
“Plus One is a robust, intelligent debut, and is as notable for its arrangements as it is for its top-tier playing.”