Website of Pianist and Composer Gilad Barkan

Our music brings together influences from African, Brazilian and other Latin music, as well as from our homelands - Israel, Suriname, Mexico, Chile, and the U.S. As improvisers, we are inspired by great jazz masters as well as by more Eastern traditions, and just plain fun groove!

Barkan has performed at New York City's Iridium, BAM Cafe, Smoke, Cachaça, the Kitano, and Cornelia St. Cafe; at Boston's First Night, Berklee Performance Center, Regattabar, Hatch Shell, Scullers; Ocho Rios Jazz Festival, Jamaica; and FNX/Boston Phoenix Jazz Series, among other venues. Live double CD released in collaboration with WGBH Radio Boston.

Gilad Barkan Band

Amir Milstein - Flute
Gilad Barkan - Piano
Keala Kaumeheiwa - Bass
Karina Colis - Drums

Pianist Gilad Barkan’s music forms a bridge between cultures. His compositions are poignant and enchanting, harmonically sophisticated yet accessible, linking his love for popular musics from around the world – notably Africa, Brazil, and his Israeli homeland – with a joyous rhythmic and melodic freedom as an improviser, and a distinctly warm and lyrical approach.

Barkan’s current group is the strongest edition to date. Israeli flutist Amir Milstein, co-leader of Bustan Abraham, bestows the music with a mesmerizing and soulful new dimension, while American bassist Keala Kaumeheiwa and Mexican drummer Karina Colis anchor the band within a powerful and organic texture, rooted in Latin and African rhythms and jazz.

Born in England and raised in Israel, Barkan grew up in a musical family and took up the piano as a teenager. After a year of study at Rimon School of Jazz, during which he won the school's Jazz Musician of the Year competition, he moved to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music.

While at Berklee, Barkan began recording and performing nationally and internationally with guitarist Issi Rozen, and appears on the guitarist’s releases, commercially successful and critically acclaimed by Jazz Times, NPR and many others. Barkan also appears regularly with Sergio and Fernando Brandão, and other prominent musicians on Boston’s jazz and world music scenes.

Barkan’s trio debut, Modulation (2003, New Step Music), blended African and Brazilian rhythms with jazz, creating a lyrical and vibrant interplay, and a recording that earned a wealth of praise from critics. Live Sessions (2007), Barkan’s second New Step release, includes some of the most exciting and moving performances by Barkan’s trio and quartet, and describes a period of musical growth and exploration towards a more open-ended sound, focusing and developing the group’s cohesiveness and joy in the moment.