Dan Papirany was born in Tel Aviv on March 7, 1967. He started on drums as a teenager before switching to piano after discovering Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, and left Israel at 21 for New Zealand, where his entire documented performing career began. From 1995 he pursued postgraduate study at Massey University in Wellington, forming a piano trio while still a student and playing venues including Bar Bodega; he also worked as a secondary-school music teacher and completed a bachelor's degree in jazz performance in 1999. In 2002 he relocated to Auckland and formed a new trio with bassist Pete McGregor and drummer Owen Kneebone.

His debut album, Session One (2004), was nominated for Jazz Album of the Year at the 2005 New Zealand Music Awards. He moved to Queensland, Australia, in 2011, recording and producing from his own studio in Bundaberg, and from 2014 has run a vocal duo project with Norwegian jazz singer Vibeke Voller. In 2016 his trio performed two shows at EUROPAfest in Bucharest, Romania, and he served on the jury of an international jazz competition there from 2017 to 2019, returning for two solo sets at the festival's 2018 gala concerts. His most recent documented release, I Trio (2022), is an all-original solo project on which he plays piano, bass and drums himself, with one track featuring trumpeter Brett Loretz.

Papirany's playing traces directly to his stated formative influences, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett — a lyrical, harmonically considered post-bop approach carried through a career built almost entirely as a trio leader. His Israeli origins are a matter of birthplace rather than a documented musical influence or scene connection: no source found ties his training, bands, or performing history to Israel or Israeli musicians at any point after his move to New Zealand at 21.