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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.

Friedman has lived and performed across the three continents she has called home. Her own projects include the Danielle Friedman Trio, Tangerine, and Casa No Mundo, and she also regularly performs as a collaborator with artists and acts such as King Josephine, Lisa Hoppe’s YSOP and Maura MoC, among others.

Born in 1991, Friedman began playing piano at the age of six and was exposed to both classical and popular music from an early age. Throughout her adolescent years, she developed an interest in Jazz through her love of improvisation and her unyielding fascination with rhythm.

After studying at the Israeli Conservatory in Tel Aviv’s Center for Jazz Studies, she received a full scholarship to The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York, where she completed her studies and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with honors in 2016. Among the musicians and educators who had a significant impact on her development as a musician are Anat Fort, Yuval Cohen, Steve Cardenas, Benita Meshulam, and Cecil Bridgewater.

Friedman’s debut album, School of Fish, was recorded with her New York Trio in Brooklyn in 2017, featuring 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 at Dixon’s Place in 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 Ministry of Culture in 2019.Inclined to explore a new musical context, Friedman moved to Berlin in 2018, where she began working on and collaborating with numerous projects.

During the pandemic, she founded Zahir with musicians Lisa Hoppe and Lucia Boffo. The trio developed tenderly improvised, bold, and humorous music rooted in jazz, resulting in their only album "Fragments of the Here and Now" (2024).

Shortly afterwards, Friedman joined the freshly formed Lisa Hoppe’s YSOP, an international band of musicians from Switzerland, France, Germany, and Israel. Its unorthodox line-up — for Jazz, at least — consisting of vocals, violin/cello, trombone, piano, and upright bass, and creates a distinctive ensemble sound.
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Together, they won the Transnational Jazz competition in 2021 and went on to tour and record their debut album "Faking an Imperfect Utopia", which was nominated for the Deutscher Jazzpreis for Best Debut Album of the Year 2024.

"Weary Gold", Friedman’s 2023 solo piano album, is her sophomore release following her debut trio record, and was developed with the support of a 2021 grant from the German foundation Zurückgeben Stiftung.

"Weary Gold" was conceived during the Covid years and comprises mostly original compositions, alongside arrangements of well-known Israeli songs set to the words of poet Leah Goldberg. Throughout both the original and arranged pieces, there is a constant dialogue with Goldberg’s themes of nature, longing for the past, childhood, loneliness, and love. Goldberg and Friedman intermittently deal with the question of what and where is home.

Since 2022, Friedman has been developing a duo project with Amsterdam-based saxophonist Aviv Noam, called Tangerine. The duo recorded their debut EP in January 2024 and soon after received a composition scholarship from Amarte Fonds (NL). Tangerine released its debut EP "Time Without Disasters" in May 2025, and has been touring Germany and the Netherlands. In 2026, Friedman was awarded the Berliner Senat Arbeitsstipendium to further develop the project and compose new material for Tangerine’s forthcoming album.

Friedman is also a member of the Brazilian music trio Casa No Mundo, together with Sophia Bicking on vocals and Mariana Zwarg on flute. The trio reimagines Brazilian repertoire through jazz-influenced arrangements and improvisation, shaped by each member’s distinct musical background, and is set to release its debut EP by the end of 2026.

Danielle Friedman is a musician whose musical exploration knows no boundaries. She is interested in any kind of music that is real, deep, humorous, touching, and groovy. Friedman can be found performing on stages and at festivals across Europe, including Reeperbahn Festival, Bejazz Transnational Jazz Festival, Most Wanted: Music, Fusion Festival, Jazz Open Stuttgart Festival, Donau115, Gretchen Club, TEDDY Awards, Bird’s Eye Jazz Club, and Jazzkeller69, among many others, with her various projects and bands.

Awards

2026 Berliner Senat Jazz Arbeitsstipendium

2024 Amarte Fonds Development awards - Tangerine

2024 nominated for Deutscher Jazzpreis ‘Best Debut Album of the Year 2024' with Lisa Hoppe's Ysop "Faking an inperfect Utopia”

2021 Zurückgeben Stiftung for solo piano album "Weary Gold"

2019 Young artists scholarship, Israeli Culture ministry

2014 Full Scholarship for The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music

Gear

E. Seiler piano

Nord Electro

Nord Stage

Grand Piano

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Danielle Friedman: Weary Gold

Read "Weary Gold" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
October 4, 2023

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 ...

Album Review

Danielle Friedman: School of Fish

Read "School of Fish" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
April 5, 2019

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 ...

Album Review

Danielle Friedman Trio: School of Fish

Read "School of Fish" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 23, 2019

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 ...

"... 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