Elana Arian

Elana Arian is one of the leading voices in contemporary Jewish music. A composer,

multi-instrumentalist, prayer leader, and recording artist, Elana inspires

communities across the country with her soulful songwriting and spirit. Elana’s

work has been published in many Transcontinental Music collections, and her

compositions are sung in synagogues, summer camps, and spiritual communities

from Louisville to London, from Chicago to Cape Town, and everywhere in

between. Elana just released her fourth album of original music, The Other Side of

Fear. Elana has served on the faculty of both Hava Nashira in Oconomowoc, WI and

Shirei Chagiga in London, and she is an instructor at the Hebrew Union College -

Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, working as a teaching artist in the Debbie

Friedman School of Sacred Music. She has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln

Center, Tanglewood, and perhaps most memorably, five separate appearances at

the (Obama) White House. She lives in New York with her wife, Julia, and their two

daughters.

Raised on equal parts Mozart, Mingus, and Mitchell, Elana studied conducting and

violin, jazz guitar, and songwriting at Yale. She has appeared on NPR’s Soundcheck,

as well as on PBS’ Finding Your Roots. A sought-after studio musician, Elana

maintains a busy recording schedule, working with such varied artists as Peter

Yarrow, the Dirty Projectors, and Catie Curtis. She held the guitar chair on both the

smash revival of Sweet Charity starring Tony award-winner, Sutton Foster, and for

Kristin Chenoweth’s acclaimed For the Girls, and worked on multiple instruments in

the pit orchestras of Broadway shows. She lives in New York with her wife, Julia,

and their two daughters.