BIOS FOR THE PIANISTS

Gabriel Zucker is a pianist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist from New York. Classically trained in piano and composition, Zucker combines maximalist compositions with the progressive improvisation of New York’s creative music scene. His music has received two ASCAP composition awards, and he has performed throughout New York at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Jazz Gallery, as well as across the Northeast, Canada, and Europe. Recent/current collaborators include Tyshawn Sorey, Tony Malaby, Billy Mintz, Perry Robinson, and Adam O'Farrill.

Zucker’s primary ensemble, The Delegation, was born at the 2013 Banff Jazz and Creative Music Workshop and now features twelve improvisers from all walks of musical life. In October 2013, Zucker received a JFund grant from the American Composers Forum to write an ensemble-defining work for the group; the evening-length result, Evergreen (Canceled World), won an ASCAP Morton Gould Young composers award and was premiered at the Jazz Gallery. The piece is featured on the group's debut record, produced by Zucker, which was released October 2016 on ESP-Disk'.

In 2012, Zucker was commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony First Music program to write a piece for symphony orchestra and jazz band; the resulting work Universal at Midnight was premiered at Carnegie Hall. Zachary Woolfe wrote in the New York Times that the work “suavely combined a symphony orchestra and a jazz band, beginning with a haunting orchestral hush and passing a gentle theme through the jazz soloists. It was a nocturne out of early Bernstein or introspective Sinatra.” Zucker’s compositions have also been played by the JACK Quartet and the Argento Ensemble.

Zucker's newest project, a quartet featuring Tyshawn Sorey, Adam O'Farrill, and Eric Trudel, debuted in 2015 with the premiere of Weighting, an evening-length work inspired by Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers. The piece will be featured on Zucker's third studio album, which will be released in 2017.

An active pianist in the creative music scene, Zucker performs with a variety of projects in New York, with frequent performances at Spectrum NYC, where he is a board member and consulting curator. His project No Reference For Taste with drummer and co-conspirator Gabriel Globus-Hoenich brings dance music power to metrically complex grooves, and toured Europe in early 2016. An avid improviser, Zucker works closely with many of the rising stars of improvised music, developing a 21st century language of free improvisation. Projects include the collaborative trio Asymptote with Dre Hocevar and Bryan Qu, and a recent performance at the Jazz Gallery with Hocevar and Lester St. Louis, also featuring Tony Malaby. As a classical pianist, Zucker has been presented in recital by the Abby Whiteside Foundation at Weill Recital Hall, and he continues to develop a distinct voice in classical music, focusing on twentieth century composers like Ives and Messiaen.

Inspired by such artists as Wilco, Radiohead, and Sufjan Stevens, Zucker also brings his compositional experience and penchant for sonic adventuring to his work as a guitarist and singer-songwriter. His free-jazz-inflected indie rock band underorder will be releasing its debut record in early 2017. His previous group, the psychedelic vintage rock band Two Out Rally, released its debut record in 2013.

Zucker graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 2012, where he won the Music Department's Bach Society Prize as “a pianist who has excelled in solo, concerto and chamber music genres, a jazz pianist who has sustained a creative and virtuosic activity during his time at Yale, and a composer who has intensified his ambitious endeavor to find a synthesis between his art music and jazz interests.” A committed social activist in addition to a musician, Zucker double majored in Ethics, Politics, & Economics as well as Music, has worked on poverty policy research at MIT, and most recently led a successful campaign to end veteran homelessness in Connecticut. He recently returned from Oxford where he was studying on a 2015 Rhodes Scholarship.


Erika Dohi is a NYC-based pianist. Erika Dohi is a multi-faceted artist with an eclectic musical background that ranges from traditionally classical to jazz, free improvisation, and contemporary music. Over the past year, Erika has enjoyed collaborating and performing with jazz musicians Ambrose Akinmusire, Kendrick Scott and Justin Brown, and has appeared at the International Society of Improvised Music alongside Wadada Leo Smith. An advocate of new music, Erika has recently premiered works by composers Andy Akiho, Cindy Cox, and Samir Chatterjee. She also recently recorded "Desde Adentro,” a solo piano piece by Latin Grammy Winner, Fernando Ottero.

Erika is the co-founder, with flutist Gina Izzo, of RighteousGIRLS, a duo that fuses classical, contemporary, and jazz, while inviting some of today’s most prominent composers to create genre-blurring new music. RighteousGIRLS’s album gathering blue has been met with critical acclaim from both jazz and contemporary-classical critics alike; Jackson Cooper, from I Care If You Listen, called it ”…one of the most adventurous new music debut albums in recent years.” gathering blue received a 4.5 stars rating by John Ephland in DownBeat magazine. The duo has recently received a 2015 New Music USA Awards Grant, 3rd place in the 2015 International Songwriting Competition for GIRLS by composer/producer Pascal Le Boeuf, and a 2014 Independent Music Awards Nomination for gathering blue (Best Album) and KARakurENAI (Best Instrumental) by composer/steel-pannist Andy Akiho.

She has made appearances at international festivals including the Montreal Jazz Festival (Canada), D.C. Jazz Festival (U.S), Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music (Canada), Tokyo Experimental Festival (Japan), and Norfolk New Music Workshop (U.S); and has performed alongside contemporary ensembles including American Modern Ensemble, Contemporaneous, Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, Le Train Bleu, Ensemble LPR, and the Metropolis Ensemble.

Erika has recently performed at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, (Le) Poisson Rouge, subculture, Joe's Pub, Symphony Space, the Cutting Room, the Cornelia Street Café, at Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), as well as in Japan at Izumi Hall, Tokyo Wonder Site, Chuo Kokaido Symphony Hall, and in the “R” music series at the Rihga Royal Hotel.

Erika received her B.M. from Manhattan School of Music’s Classical Performance Program and her M.M. in the Contemporary Performance Program. While at MSM, she worked closely with musicians including Phillip Kawin, Anthony de Mare, Jeffrey Milarsky, Christopher Oldfather, Todd Reynolds, Lucy Shelton, and studied improvisation with Vijay Iyer. Currently, Erika studies piano with Gilbert Kalish and Christina Dahl at Stony Brook University where she is a Doctoral Candidate.