Victor Gould
Piano
About
Victor Gould is a jazz pianist, composer, and arranger based in New York. His 2016 debut album Clockwork was voted the year's best debut by NPR Music's Jazz Critics Poll, establishing him as a major emerging voice in contemporary jazz. He has since released Earthlings, Thoughts Become Things, and In Our Time, the latter featuring a Chamber Music America-commissioned composition. Gould built his career through apprenticeships with Donald Harrison, Wallace Roney, and Ralph Peterson Jr. before stepping out as a leader. His sideman work includes performances and recordings with Esperanza Spalding, Terence Blanchard, Branford Marsalis, Jeremy Pelt, and Jazzmeia Horn, whose Grammy-nominated album Love and Liberation features his piano. In 2024, he appeared on the Black Art Jazz Collective's Grammy-nominated Truth to Power. His compositions often incorporate flute lines inspired by his father's playing, alongside strings and chamber ensembles.
Trivia
Gould's father was a jazz flutist, and Gould often features flute prominently in his compositions as a tribute. He was a semi-finalist in the 2006 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition and won the 2009 ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Award. He joined the Donald Harrison Quartet at age seventeen, recording three albums and a DVD before finishing his education. His composition "Chaancé" on Clockwork is named after his wife.
Early Life
Victor Gould grew up in Los Angeles, California. His father, a jazz flutist, placed him at the piano at age four to have a musical collaborator. He studied at the Colburn School and began working with pianist Tamir Hendelman at twelve. He attended the L.A. County High School for the Arts, where he won the Los Angeles Music Center's 2004 Spotlight Award. He received the Herbie Hancock Presidential Scholarship, a full ride to Berklee College of Music, where he was selected for the Monterey Jazz Festival Next Generation All-Star Band and the Gibson/Baldwin Grammy Jazz Band. He earned a Master of Music from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at Loyola University in New Orleans, studying under the artistic direction of Terence Blanchard as part of the Class of 2011.
Victor Gould Solos
2018
Piano solo - What Is This Thing Called Love - 2018
4/4 swing in C major at 255 BPM
Piano solo - Monk's Dream - 2018
4/4 swing in C major at 152 BPM