Dan Pugach | Drums

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 that focuses on his original music and arrangements. Dan’s arrangement of “Jolene”/Parton from his 2018 debut album Dan Pugach Nonet - Plus One was GRAMMY® nominated for Best Arrangement for Instruments with Vocals. 

Dan won two ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awards in 2011 and 2013 and is the 2019 recipient of the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize/Manny Albam Commission as part of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop. 

“The writing is on point, sharp, concise and so is everybody’s playing. Beautiful album.”— Antonio Sanchez 

“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.”— Alan Ferber 

“While the versatile band certainly deserves kudos, it’s Pugach’s dynamic drumming that allows so many seemingly disparate styles to cohere into a warm, singular sound” — Keaton Lamle,—Modern Drummer Magazine 

“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...”—Ingrid Jensen 

“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." –– All About Jazz