BIO

Daniel Szabo is a Los Angeles-based, award-winning pianist-composer-educator, specializing in jazz, classical, and film music. He regularly performs at major venues both in the US and Europe; his trio played in the “Mellon Jazz Up” series hosted by Danilo Perez at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and he has toured worldwide including the Jazz Gallery in NYC, Blue Note Milan, Blue Whale & Catalina Jazz Club in Los Angeles, The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, Yoshi’s in San Francisco, 606 Club in London, Duc des Lombards in Paris, A-Trane in Berlin, and the list goes on..

Szabo has collaborated with Chris Potter, Peter Erskine, Kurt Rosenwinkel,John Patitucci, Dave Weckl, Bob Sheppard, Jimmy Haslip, Kim Richmond, Ferenc Nemeth, Lionel Loueke, John Ellis, John Zorn, Rosario Giuliani, Julian Siegel, Flavio Boltro, Piotr Wojtasik, among many others.

In March of 2022, invited by Chick Corea's management, Szabo, as one of three Corea-mentored pianists, performed Chick's jazz piano concerto alongside John Patitucci and Dave Weckl at the Palace of Arts, followed by a standing ovation.

His chamber jazz album, “Visionary” (Fuzzy Music Inc.), was selected by JAZZIZ as the “Best Albums of the Year 2019”, among such stellar artists as Brad Mehldau or Esperanza Spaulding.

Szabo was the winner of the ASCAP/Symphonic Jazz Orchestra Commissioning Prize in 2018; the Grand Prize of the City of Paris in the frame work of the “Martial Solal International Jazz Piano Contest” in 2006; and the “Jas Hennessy Solo Piano Competition” in Montreux, in 2000.

Szabo currently shares his time between the US & Europe, and is an active member of the international jazz community as well as being an active composer, arranger and producer. He has also been a professor at the prestigious Herb Alpert School of Music of UCLA and has a Doctorate degree from USC and a Masters from the New England Conservatory. Szabo was mentored by Danilo Perez, Bob Brookmeyer, Jerry Bergonzi, Peter Erskine & Vince Mendoza.

Szabo has a unique voice and always seeks for boundary-crossing compositional and improvisational approaches.