| Nitai Hershkovits | |
| Birth Date: | February 21 1988 |
| Origin: | Israel |
| Occupation: | Musician, composer, bandleader |
| Instrument: | Piano |
| Label: | ECM, Raw Tapes, Enja |
| Associated Acts: | Avishai Cohen Trio, Daniel Zamir |
Nitai Hershkovits (Hebrew: ניתאי הרשקוביץ) (born 21 February 1988) is a jazz pianist and composer.
Hershkovits was born in Israel to Eva and Ilan Hershkovits, and got Moroccan-Polish heritage. He started playing the clarinet at the age of twelve and three years after, at the age of fifteen, he discovered his love for the piano and began exploring the world of improvisation. By the age of seventeen, he had won two consecutive years (2004 and 2005) of the Jazz Signs competition and moved to Tel Aviv, there he managed to combine regular school with private music and piano lessons under the guidance of jazz educators Amit Golan and Yuval Cohen. During this time in school, he soon became interested in a rich variety of both classical and jazz music, writing arrangements for bands from the "Israel Conservatory of Music" in Tel Aviv that he was studying in (guided by teachers Omer Avital, Avishai Cohen, and Avi Lebovich). These experiences led him to studying classical music and theory with Israeli composer and educator, Dr. Menahem Weisenberg and classical piano educator Shoshana Cohen and Amir Pedorovits.[1]
Between the years 2004 and 2010, he was awarded four times in a row the highest scholarship given by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation (AICF). Another highlight was his one-time prestigious Chase Scholarship award in 2009, sponsoring a Bachelor’s degree at the "Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music". In a short time he realized that the institution setting was not suitable for him, and developed his taste and repertoire by taking private lessons and listening to wide variety of music.
In the midst of 2011, Hershkovits started working with bassist Avishai Cohen. As part of Cohen’s Trio, as well as of other symphonic projects, they recorded three albums together: Duende, a piano and bass Duet, Almah, a chamber music project and From Darkness, a trio album. His playing on Cohen's Duende was described by critic John Fordham as "somewhat reminiscent of a silky-toned old piano swinger such as the late Hank Jones". During their five-year collaborative work, he dove into classical music and was Avishai’s musical director of his strings project and a few others. Together they toured all over the world and performed at many different venues: ’Olympia, North Sea Jazz Festival, Village Vanguard, Antibes Jazz Festival, Jazz ? Vienne, Montreux Jazz Festival, to name a few.
In 2016, after five years with Avishai Cohen's trio, Hershkovits decided to move to New York. His last tour with Cohen's trio was with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and a few other musicians from New York, he grew up listening to. In New York he began playing and recording in numerous groups, among them Ari Hoenig group and Oded Tzur's quartet (Hershkovits played in Tzur's albums, Here Be Dragons (2020) and Isabela (2022))
Hershkovits’ debut album, I Asked You A Question (Raw Tapes Records), was released in February 2016. The album, Co-produced with Rejoicer, features him on vocals, Piano, and synths. In addition, participants in the album, Los Angeles-based singer, Brainfeeder artist, Georgia Anne Muldrow, and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, on two tracks ("Satellite Dish" and "My Turn").[2]
In 2020, Hershkovits joined three other musicians: Yuval Havkin, Rejoicer (keyboards), Amir Bresler (drums) and Yonatan Albalak (bass), and together the four formed a group called Apifera. The group, which plays instrumental music influenced by a variety of different musical styles such as: fusion, jazz, electronic music, progressive rock and classical music, was signed that same year in the independent record label based in Los Angeles, "Stones Throw", where it releases its albums.
In November 2023 Hershkovits released his first solo album on the ECM Records, Call on the Old Wise. The album, recorded in 2022 in Lugano, Switzerland, produced by Manfred Eicher, includes, in addition to his original compositions, arrangements of the jazz standard "Single Petal Of A Rose" by Duke Ellington and the song "Dream Your Dreams" by Molly Drake (Nick Drake's mother). In 2024, the album received the prestigious German Record Critics' Award for "Jazz Album of the Year". And in addition, the album was presented by ECM label for nomination at the prestigious Grammy Award in the "Jazz Album of the Year" category.
With Apifera