Dan Pugach

Dan Pugach is a GRAMMY® Award-winning drummer and composer, with three nominations and multiple awards, including the ASCAP Foundation Jazz Composer Award, the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize and the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Residency Program at the Kennedy Center. 

His latest album, Bianca Reimagined: Music for Paws and Persistence (2024), featuring Nicole Zuraitis, won the 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. Additionally, he was the featured drummer on the 2024 GRAMMY® Award-winning album How Love Begins, co-produced by Nicole Zuraitis and Christian McBride. His debut album, Dan Pugach Nonet - Plus One (2018), reached the top 20 in Jazz radio and earned a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocal for “Jolene” alongside Zuraitis.

Pugach’s nonet and big band regularly perform original music and arrangements at prestigious venues such as Birdland Jazz Club, The Blue Note, and Smalls Jazz Club as well as at international festivals and performing arts centers. The nonet also performed at the Chamber Music America National Conference.

Born in Israel, he served as the drummer for The Air Force Band in the IDF while attending the Rimon School of Jazz. After studying percussion in Rio de Janeiro, he moved to the U.S. in 2006 to pursue a career in Jazz drumming. Pugach holds a Bachelor of Music from Berklee College of Music, where he studied with Terri Lynn Carrington and Joe Lovano, and a Master of Arts from the City College of New York, studying under Mike Holober and John Patitucci.