Daniel Berkman

Daniel Berkman is a San Francisco-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, electronic musician, live looper, producer, singer-songwriter, film and dance score composer and innovator of electro-acoustic music, specializing in the kora and it’s counterpart, the gravikora. Daniel has produced many acclaimed albums featuring the kora, most notably “Calabashmoon” (2005), "Headlands" (2015) and his "Garden Variety" series (2020-2022) for live electric kora, the planetarium show soundtrack “Earth Portal” (2012), his full length ballet for Contra Costa Ballet “Alice In Wonderland” (2012), a dance film for Dance Theatre of San Francisco called “Unspoken” (2016) and his acclaimed electronic album “Tape” (2009) under his moniker Colfax. Daniel has since created over 33 albums and his music has traversed a wide landscape of genres, technologies and ideologies, borrowing from the past in his music for cello, viola da gamba, kora, ukelin, marxophone, ondes martenot, ondomo, analog synths and mellotron. Daniel is also riding the wave of the future, having composed “Immergence”, one of the first ever pieces composed in VR for LyraVR at the Institute For The Future (IFTF) in Palo Alto, continuing his every evolving process and dedication to the pursuit of new and innovative music. Daniel’s many collaborations include Artemis, Lynda Arnold (Divasonic), Rafe Pearlman, Joshua Penman, Marya Stark, Bongo Sidibe and the Tontons, Matt Venuti and many others.