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.

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.

Elana recently 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. Website