- July 18, 2026 - 7:00 PM
- Gordon Hall, Music Mountain
NICOLE ZURAITIS QUARTET
Nicole Zuraitis, Piano/Voice, Dan Pugach, Drums, Idan Morim Guitar, and Sam Weber, Bass, present their latest album, “The Devil I Knew.” With a “heart as big as her remarkable voice” (Jazz Police), Nicole Zuraitis is a 2-time Grammy Award winning artist who is redefining vocal jazz.
NICOLE ZURAITIS QUARTET
Nicole Zuraitis, Piano/Voice
Dan Pugach, Drums
Idan Morim, Guitar
Sam Weber, Bass
NICOLE ZURAITIS, PIANO/VOICE
Nicole Zuraitis is a 2X GRAMMY® winning and 6X GRAMMY-nominated jazz singer-songwriter (nominated in 4 distinct categories: Best Jazz Vocal Album, Best Large Jazz Ensemble, Best Jazz Performance and Best Arrangement), pianist, producer, arranger and winner of the prestigious American Traditions Vocal Competition Gold Medal. With a “heart as big as her remarkable voice,” (Jazz Police), Nicole has positioned herself as one of the top artists and "prolific songwriters" (Broadway World) to watch in jazz and beyond, or as she likes to call it, The Modern Songbook.
As a recording artist, Nicole has released seven albums as leader, and her sixth album, How Love Begins, co-produced with eight-time GRAMMY-winner Christian McBride, won BEST JAZZ VOCAL ALBUM at the 2024 GRAMMY® awards and features all original music. She is the only person ever to have won this award who wrote and arranged the entire album herself.
Her live album Live at Vic’s Las Vegas, which she produced, wrote and arranged featuring Tom Scott, Keyon Harrold, Rachel Eckroth, Idan Morim, Sam Weber and Dan Pugach, was nominated for 2 GRAMMYS in 2026.
Her newest album The Devil I Knew, produced by the legendary Larry Klein, is set to release July 17th, 2026.
In addition to leading her quartet, Nicole performed and recorded with the Birdland Big Band as the premier vocalist before taking off as a large ensemble leader of her own, co-producing the Dan Pugach Big Band and guesting for major big bands around the globe. She has headlined at Newport Jazz Festival, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Caramoor, Saratoga Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scott’s, and Tanglewood, along with iconic NYC jazz clubs like Dizzy’s Club at Lincoln Center, Birdland, the Blue Note, the Carlyle, 54 Below and the late, great 55 Bar. She also has appeared as a featured soloist with the Savannah Philharmonic, Asheville Symphony, and Macon Pops as well as the Danish Radio Big Band. Her original song “Always” closed the 2025 Teyana Taylor album Escape Room (Def Jam Records).
Nicole is a featured artist and producer on her husband’s, renowned drummer, bandleader, and composer Dan Pugach, 2025 GRAMMY-winning album, Bianca Reimagined: Music for Paws and Persistence (Best Large Ensemble) for which they composed the GRAMMY-nominated song, “Little Fears” (Best Jazz Performance). Nicole is a vocalist on the GRAMMY-winning “Last Sunday in Plains: A Centennial Celebration” alongside Jon Batiste, Keb’ Mo’, and LeeAnn Rimes. In 2024, Broadway World honored Nicole with the “Best Big Band Show” Award. Nicole's arrangement of Dolly Parton's Jolene, co-written with Dan Pugach, was nominated for a 2019 GRAMMY®, springboarding her career and making her a household name in the modern-day jazz landscape. In 2020, she was named in the top 40 under 40 for 2020 in Connecticut Magazine, and her weekly live stream during the Covid-19 crisis, "Virtual Piano Lounge," was featured in Forbes Magazine. Her Live at Vic’s Las Vegas album was featured on NPR Toast of the Nation 2026 in an hour long special.
Nicole has collaborated with an extensive list of luminaries, including Christian McBride, Tom Scott, Keyon Harrold, David Cook, Larry Klein, Jerry Hey, Vince Mendoza, Gilad Hekselman, Benny Benack, Stephen Feifke, Cyrille Aimee, Antonio Sanchez, Scott Sharrard, Javon Jackson, Nikki Giovanni, Dave Stryker, Omar Hakim, Rachel Z, Helen Sung, Melanie, Morgan James, Darren Criss, Livingston Taylor, Thana Alexa, Rachel Eckroth, Don Braden and Bernard Purdie. She is a proud educator and a current vocal faculty member at NYU and the Litchfield Jazz Camp. In 2024, Post University awarded Nicole an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters.
An ardent activist with a decade-long track record of giving back, her release of How Love Begins coincided with a self-produced music festival and day of activism for Save the Sound.Org. All proceeds of the GRAMMY winning album Bianca Reimagined go to pitbull rescues Nicole and Dan have fostered through the last 15 years.
DAN PUGACH, DRUMS
Dan Pugach is a GRAMMY® Award-winning drummer and composer, a 5X GRAMMY® nominee, 2X ASCAP Foundation Jazz Composer Award winner, a recipient of the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize/Manny Albam Commission for Big Band and a participant at the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Residency Program at the Kennedy Center. He is a 2025 Chamber Music America “New Jazz Works” Grantee.
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.
The Dan Pugach nonet and big band perform regularly and have headlined at Dizzy’s, Deer Head Inn, Birdland, Blue Note, Smalls, the 55bar, and the Red Sea Jazz Festival.
Born in Tel Aviv, he served as the drummer for The Air Force Band 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 performance. Pugach holds a Bachelor of Music from Berklee College of Music (2008), where he studied with Terri Lynn Carrington and Joe Lovano, and a Master of Arts from the City College of New York (2011), where he studied with Mike Holober, Scott Reeves and John Patitucci.
IDAN MORIM, GUITAR
Idan Morim is a 2× Grammy-nominated guitarist and composer whose voice sits at the intersection of contemporary jazz, lyrical composition, and fearless improvisation. Born in Tel Aviv and based in New York City, he has built one of the most distinctive careers among his generation of jazz guitarists — equally at home leading his own ensemble and serving as the trusted musical partner of Grammy-winning artists.
By age 16 he was already recording and performing professionally. becoming an in-demand guitarist. After serving as a guitarist and arranger in the Army Band, he pursued formal studies at the Tel Aviv Conservatory before earning acceptance to The New School’s School of Jazz and Contemporary Music on the Provost Scholarship — one of the institution’s most prestigious awards, and began immersing himself in the NYC Jazz scene.
He quickly established himself in New York’s competitive jazz scene, building his voice as both leader and sideman. His debut album I.M (Outside In Music, 2019) — featuring an exceptional quintet with Adam O’Farrill (trumpet), Almog Sharvit (bass), Colin Stranahan (drums), and Micha Gilad (piano) — received immediate critical acclaim. All About Jazz called it “a truly brilliant debut,” praising its “dense and multidimensional melodies.” JazzTimes highlighted his “crisp compositions” and the “sensational” ensemble.
Morim has toured internationally and appeared on recordings with some of the most distinct voices in the world of Jazz, and he is currently the regular guitarist in Grammy-winning Nicole Zuraitis’s working quartet, performing alongside bassist Sam Weber and drummer Dan Pugach. In 2026, this collaboration yielded two Grammy nominations — Best Jazz Performance and Best Jazz Vocal Album — for Live at Vic’s Las Vegas, recorded live with special guests Tom Scott, Keyon Harrold, and Rachel Eckroth.
Beyond performance, Morim has composed for film and dance, and remains an active educator in New York City. He is now working on his follow up album to I.M expected in 27’
SAM WEBER, BASS
Sam Weber is an multi-Grammy-nominated acoustic and electric bassist, composer, and arranger based in Brooklyn, New York.
Since his arrival in New York City in 2012, Sam has been in constant demand as a sideman, performing with an eclectic community of musicians ranging from singer-songwriters to rising stars of the NYC jazz scene, dancers, rappers, crooners, avant-garde improvisers, contemporary theater artists, punk mariachis, etc. Sam has performed at top jazz venues including The Blue Note, Lincoln Center, Birdland, Smalls, Mezzrow, The Jazz Gallery, The Cotton Club, The Deer Head Inn, The Green Mill, and The Jazz Showcase, historic rock and folk venues including The Grand Ole Opry, Club Passim, The Bitter End, and Cafe Wha, national and international jazz festivals, folk festivals, songwriter’s festivals, hotel lobbies, boats, pharmacies, sidewalks, subway platforms, and many many others.
You can hear Sam's playing on recordings alongside stars like Sting, Lin Manuel-Miranda, and Neil Patrick Harris, as well as jazz luminaries like Tom Scott, Caroline Davis, Nicole Zuraitis, Keyon Harrold, and Rachel Eckroth, to name a few. (For a discography, visit the Listen page.) In 2025, three recordings featuring Sam’s playing were nominated for Grammys: “The Impossible Dream“ by Aaron Lazar (Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album), “Little Fears” by the Dan Pugach Big Band featuring Nicole Zuraitis (Best Jazz Performance), and “Bianca Reimagined” by the Dan Pugach Big Band, which won the Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. In 2026, Sam was personally nominated under Best Jazz Performance and Best Vocal Jazz Album for his playing on Nicole Zuraitis's album Live at Vic's.
Originally a midwesterner (growing up in Terre Haute, IN, and Kalamazoo, MI), Sam is an alumni of Western Michigan University, where he earned both a BA in Jazz Studies (2010) and an MA in Music (2011). Sam is also active as an educator and has traveled throughout the US and internationally presenting clinics, lectures, and masterclasses, in addition to maintaining his own private studio.