Gilad Hekselman

Gilad Hekselman is one of the leading voices in modern jazz guitar, an Israeli born composer and bandleader who has been a fixture of the New York scene since the mid 2000s. Born in 1983 in Kfar Saba, he studied classical piano from age six and guitar from nine, and graduated from the Thelma Yellin School of Arts before settling in New York. He won the Gibson Montreux International Guitar Competition in 2005 and topped the Rising Star guitar category of the DownBeat Critics Poll in 2017 and 2022. As a leader he has built a distinctive and widely admired body of work, and he has performed and recorded with artists including Chris Potter, Mark Turner, Anat Cohen, Esperanza Spalding, and Ben Wendel.