Nitai Hershkovits

Nitai Hershkovits, a pianist and composer from Israel, navigates an expansive stylistic range that fuses post-bop lineages associated with Chick Corea alongside impressionistic classical and electronic currents. Attention first arrived for him in the 2010s via performances with bassist Avishai Cohen, after which he relocated to New York City and documented sessions involving Ari Hoenig and Oded Tzur. His catalog repeatedly foregrounds his sustained creative bond with producer Yuvi Havkin, known professionally as Rejoicer, across the 2016 album I Asked You a Question, the 2018 release Lemon the Moon, and the 2021 project Overstand. His ECM debut arrived in 2023, foregrounding his refined solo-piano command on Call on the Old Wise.

Born in Israel in 1988, Hershkovits was raised in a multi-cultural household that included a Moroccan mother and a Polish father. Clarinet studies began at age 12; he switched to piano at 15 and promptly captured consecutive victories at the Jazz Signs competition. Around that juncture he moved to Tel Aviv to advance his training and receive private lessons from jazz educators Amit Golan and Yuval Cohen. Parallel to his classical work he absorbed the influence of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Improvisation and arrangement writing soon followed, often in association with the Israeli Conservatory in Tel Aviv. Further instruction included music-theory classes with composer and educator Dr. Menahem Weisenberg and classical-piano study with Amir Pedorovits. Distinctions followed, among them four scholarships from the Israel-American Music Foundation and the 2009 Chase Scholarship, which funded his bachelor’s degree at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music. In 2011, however, he withdrew from formal study to join bassist Avishai Cohen’s trio. The group recorded several albums, including 2012’s Duende, 2013’s Almah, and 2015’s From Darkness.

While working with Cohen he also began a partnership with producer Yuvi Havkin, aka Rejoicer, that generated an ongoing series of recordings merging jazz, electronics, and assorted world-music traditions. In 2016 he settled in New York City, where he performed regularly with artists such as Ari Hoenig and Oded Tzur. That same year saw the release of his debut album, I Asked You a Question. Co-produced with Rejoicer, it placed Hershkovits on piano and vocals and featured contributions from keyboardist/singer Georgia Anne Muldrow, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, and others.

In 2018 he issued his sophomore album, New Place Always (Enja/Yellowbird), centered primarily on solo-piano work. The following year he returned to cross-pollinated terrain with Lemon the Moon, again collaborating with Rejoicer along with drummer Amir Bresler and bassist Or Bareket. Concurrently, he and Rejoicer released the exploratory self-titled debut of their Time Grove Ensemble. A related quartet—Hershkovits, Rejoicer, Bresler, and bassist Yonatan Albalak—formed under the name Apifera. Inspired by composers such as Ravel and the space jazz of Sun Ra, the group issued 2021’s Overstand.

Hershkovits pursued a comparably genre-fluid strategy on his fourth solo album, 2022’s Imajin, once more intertwining jazz, electronics, and classical elements. One year later he made his ECM debut with the solo-piano recording Call on the Old Wise. Captured at the Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano under producer Manfred Eicher, the album reflected his impressionistic classical leanings.