Eliza Salem is an in-demand drummer, educator and composer currently based in Brooklyn, New York. As a multi-faceted musician, Eliza strives to explore and reach across the many domains of creative music. Bridging deep grooves and swing, diasporic traditions, song, and colorful improvisatory spaces, Eliza strives to embody empathy, honesty, and patience in every musical and artistic context. This philosophy has allowed them to seek out, learn from, and grow alongside some of New York’s most esteemed and truthful improvisers and artists.

Eliza has played in acclaimed performance spaces locally and nationally such as Lincoln Center, The Stone, Mezzrow, Smalls, Birdland Jazz Club, Roulette, 55 Bar, the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Newport Jazz Festival, SFJAZZ, the Vail Dance Festival, the Gilmore Piano Festival, and the Portland Jazz Festival, among others. Since moving to New York, Eliza has taken part in multiple national and international tours including Caroline Davis’s Alula throughout the United States and Australia which featured both Chris Tordini and Noah Garabedian on bass. Eliza also toured with the Marta Sánchez trio featuring bassist Or Bareket in India, with performances at the Spanish Embassy in New Delhi and multiple venues across and outside of the city. Currently, Eliza is a member of the band Careful in the Sun led by Maya Keren, a group that “traverses a verdant landscape of improvisation grounded in loops and songs.” The band has had the opportunity to perform at the NYC Winter Jazz Fest, the Center for Remembering and Sharing, Public Records, and toured across the East Coast in the spring of 2024.

Eliza received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Jazz Studies from the University of Michigan in 2021 where they studied and worked closely with Michael Gould, Sean Dobbins, Robert Hurst, Ellen Rowe, Marion Hayden and Andy Milne. Eliza is also an alumnus of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, a selective program focused on composition led by Rufus Reid, Steve Wilson, and Billy Childs.

Photo by @sonicsydney