Dan Gottfried is an Israeli jazz pianist and music educator. In 1987, he founded the Red Sea Jazz Festival

Red Sea Jazz Festival

The Red Sea Jazz Festival is a jazz festival held annually in Eilat, Israel.The Red Sea Jazz Festival was first held in 1987. It is a four-day long event featuring 9-10 concerts per evening, 6 workshops with guest artists and nightly jam sessions. All performances are held outdoors at the Eilat port...

, which he directed until his retirement in 2008.He is president of the Israel Musicians Union.

Biography

Dan Gottfried studied piano at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music. In 1959, he won First Prize in the Mozart Piano competition. In 1962, he earned an undergraduate degree in economics at Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

 and went on to study law. He began his career as a classic pianist in the early 1960s. In the 1970s he was one of the founders of the Israeli Jazz Workshop quartet, the group that recorded the first instrumental jazz album in Israel and fused jazz with Jewish and Arab motifs. In 1981, he founded the Jazz Faculty in the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance

Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance

The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance , founded in 1958 as the Rubin Academy of Music, is located on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-History:...

 and served as head of the faculty for 8 years. In 1985 he founded the Jazz Studies department of the High School of Art Thelma Yellin. In 1992 he was commissioned by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art

Tel Aviv Museum of Art

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was established in 1932 in a building that was the home of Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff. The Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art opened in 1959. The museum moved to its current location on King Saul Avenue in...

 to direct the Jazz Concerts Series at the museum. In 1994 he started the Jazz Series Lectures at the Open University of Israel

Open University of Israel

The Open University of Israel is a distance-education university in Israel. , the Open University taught around 39,000 students.The Open University of Israel has more students than any other academic institution in Israel. The administration is based in the city of Ra'anana. Students from all over...

, a yearly series of 10 lectures on the history of Jazz which is still an ongoing project. In 1998 he created the "Jazz at The Opera" concert series at the Tel Aviv Opera House, which he ran until 2004.

Gottfried leads his own Jazz Trio and Quintet, which has been invited by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to present Israeli jazz in tours abroad. (1993 Bieloruss, 1996 Latvia, 1998 India, 2004 Italy) He has performed with many jazz greats, among them Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson, Frank Foster, Sam Rivers, Niels-Henning Pedersen, Randy Brecker, Von Freeman, Johnny Frigo, Franz Jackson, Clark Tery, Major Holley, Ronnie Cuber, Sheila Jordan, Georgie Fame, Mark Murphey, Kevin Mahogany, Jean Loup L'ongnon and Gyula Babos.

Gottfried serves currently as president of the Israeli Musicians' Union and general manager of the Israeli Musicians' Collecting Society.

Gottfried's son, Yaron Gottfried, is the artistic director of the Netanya Kibbutz Orchestra.

Awards

In 2007, Gottfried received the Israeli Ministry of Culture prize for lifetime achievements in the field of jazz. In 2010, he was honored by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and received its Gold Medal.