המחלקה לביצוע ג'אז סדנאות והרצאות - ימים מיוחדים

Ofer Ganor is an accomplished Israeli jazz guitarist who has studied, recorded and played with great jazz masters such as Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, James Moody and others.

Born 1970 in Jerusalem, Israel he began his musical studies with private teachers Justin London, Steve Peskoff and Jean Claude Jones. He completed his B.M. from Berklee College of Music while receiving numerous awards and scholarships including the American Israel Cultural Foundation Award, Stephen Hollander Award, Guitar Department Award and a Downbeat Magazine up and coming musicians feature. He continued his studies in a two year program at the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute studying under many famed jazz masters such as Wynton Marsalis, Clark Terry, Jackie Mclean, Jimmy Heath and Jimmy Ponder.

As part of the program he has traveled to India to represent the U.S. with his classmates along with Herbie Hancock and played in the King of Thailand’s 60th anniversary celebrations with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. While at the institute he also completed his M.M. from the New England Conservatory of Music and received the Gunther Schuller Award. After completing his studies he has moved to New York where he gained experience playing in many clubs and concerts with musicians such as Dwayne Eubanks, Peter Bernstein, Liz Diamond, Avi Leibovich and many others. He has recorded with Ron Carter for his Building Jazz Bass Lines book with an all star rhythm section that included Mulgrew Miller on piano and Lewis Nash on Drums. During that period he has composed music for theatrical productions of Tempest and The Golem at Yale University as well as a film score for Caves of the Mind. He also played on the soundtrack for the feature film Hugo Pool composed by Danilo Perez. In 2000 he returned to Israel and has worked with many local artists and has spent time teaching and passing on his knowledge and experience to a younger generation of musicians. He has given master classes in Israel, Cyprus and France and accompanied visiting jazz artists such as Jim Rotondi and Peter Bernstein.

Ofer Ganor has recorded his debut Cd as a solo artist Solo Guitar featuring his original compositions for guitar and has two projects soon to be out. The first, a marvelous performance of a duet with pianist Omri Mor at the 2006 Tel Aviv Jazz Festival soon to be released, the other a quartet recording with Willie Jones III on drums, Aaron Goldberg on Piano and Yonatan Levi on bass. Miles Away (2011) is the latest release Featuring legendary drummer Jimmy Cobb and Yonatan Levi on Bass.

Trumpeter Avishai Cohen – voted a Rising Star three years running in the DownBeat Critics Poll – has earned renown as a musician with an individual sound and a questing spirit, an ever-creative player-composer open to multiple strains of jazz and active internationally as a leader, co-leader and sideman. The New York Times described him as “an assertive, accomplished trumpeter with a taste for modernism." Dark Nights – Avishai’s seventh recording as a leader and the third album featuring his thrilling trio Triveni with double-bassist Omer Avital and drummer Nasheet Waits – will be released by Anzic Records in autumn 2014. The trumpeter also records and tours the world as part of the prestigious SF Jazz Collective, as he does with The 3 Cohens Sextet – the hit family band with his sister, clarinetist-saxophonist Anat, and brother, saxophonist Yuval. With The 3 Cohens, Avishai has twice headlined the hallowed Village Vanguard, as well as appeared on the cover of the January 2012 issue of DownBeat. He is also co-leader of Third World Love, a longstanding multicultural venture with bassist Omer Avital, pianist Yonatan Avishai and drummer Daniel Freedman.

Avishai Cohen’s Triveni with Omer Avital and Nasheet Waits has been praised far and wide for its sonic telepathy, with National Public Radio saying: “The essence of Triveni's airy sound is how, aware of one another, each player creates interesting, flowing lines and lets the space participate. Think of artists sketching and drawing together." The latest Triveni album, Dark Nights, features guest contributors alongside the trio for the first time: the trumpeter’s superstar sister, Anat Cohen, plus Grammy-nominated pianist Gerald Clayton and hit-making French-Israeli vocalist Keren Ann. Avishai has worked with Keren Ann for more than a decade; the two shared their love of Chet Baker by recording “I Fall in Love Too Easily," a standard long associated with the legendary singer-trumpeter.

Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, Avishai began performing in public in 1988 at age 10, playing his first solos with a big band and eventually touring with the Young Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra to perform under the likes of maestros Zubin Mehta, Kurt Masur and Kent Nagano. Having worked with Israeli folk and pop artists in his native country and appeared on television early on, Avishai arrived as an experienced professional musician when he took up a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 1997, the young musician established an international reputation by placing third in the Thelonious Monk Jazz Trumpet Competition. Avishai came of age as a jazz player as part of the fresh, fertile scene at Smalls, the storied club in New York’s West Village, where he developed his artistic vision alongside such friends and colleagues as pianist Jason Lindner and bassist Omer Avital. Avishai also toured and recorded with the avant-punk Lemon Juice Quartet, experimenting with effects; the band’s 2002 release Peasant Songs earned praise from the likes of DownBeat, which applauded the album’s “rollicking joi d’vivre."

Growing up in Israel, Avishai says, “We didn’t really have any real-deal jazz musicians whom we could see in a club, or look up to. I learned jazz mostly from records. But this at least meant that I learned from the greatest: Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk. Theirs was the language I learned to speak. Then saxophonist Arnie Lawrence came to Israel, and I started playing with him at age 14. He was the only real mentor I had there. But in Israel, there was something else that was important to my musical development: this rich sense of lyricism in older Israeli music. The radio would play certain songs for certain days, with a melancholy vibe on the memorial days. Most of that music was vocal, and you couldn’t help but soak up that fluid, singing feel. And, of course, Israel is a real crossroads of East and West, with the different melodic sensibilities of Eastern Europe and Sephardic culture mixing – and the rhythms of North Africa are right there, too. My music doesn’t sound Israeli, and I left at 18, but that broader sense of music is definitely in me."

Avishai’s complete discography as a leader includes: The Trumpet Player (Fresh Sounds New Talent, 2002), After The Big Rain (Anzic, 2007), Flood (Anzic, 2008), Seven (Anzic, 2008), Introducing Triveni (Anzic, 2010), Triveni II (Anzic, 2012) and Dark Nights (Anzic, 2014). His debut, The Trumpet Player, saw him lead a session with bassist John Sullivan and drummer Jeff Ballard plus guest saxophonist Joel Frahm, mixing originals with interpretations of John Coltrane’s “Dear Lord" and Ornette Coleman’s “Giggin’." A harbinger of his future chord-less trio projects, The Trumpet Player was lauded by the likes of The New York Times, which said: Deeply influenced by West African grooves, Flood and After the Big Rain are part of an ongoing conceptual trilogy featuring all original compositions by Avishai. A spare and contemplative album, Flood set the trumpeter in an uncommon format with Yonatan Avishai on piano and Daniel Freedman on percussion. The more expansive, extrovert After the Big Rain featured guitarist-vocalist Lionel Loueke, keyboardist Jason Lindner, bassist Omer Avital, drummer Daniel Freedman and percussionist Yosvany Terry. Speaking to the wide purview of these two albums, JazzTimes declared: “Cohen is a multi-cultural jazz musician, among whose ancestors is Miles Davis. Like Davis, he can make the trumpet a vehicle for uttering the most poignant human cries." And Hot House Jazz magazine said: “This music succeeds as a finely realized ambitious chamber project showcasing the virtuosity and stylistic range of a trumpeter who’s one of the most exciting voices on the horn to emerge in this new century." The album Seven saw Avishai demonstrate another facet of his compositional talents. The digital-only release showcases an entrancing three-hour minimalist soundscape for trumpet, harp, cello, piano, bass clarinet and electric guitar written for a video installation at the Times Square Building by artist Elinor Milcham.