BIOGRAPHY

Who is Eli?

When he was just four years old, Eli Wasserman’s parents channeled his (characteristic) hyperactive energy into elementary pieces and skills by sitting him down in front of a piano. Eighteen years and countless scales later, Eli continues to compose, teach, and conduct with this same enthusiasm, with a goal to take audiences beyond the sheet music into worlds that fuse composition and activism.

A Princeton, New Jersey native, Eli composes for varied instrumentation and his music has been performed in concert halls worldwide - including Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria. He began composing in high school with an emphasis in choral music where his SATB choir piece, A Summer Night, was performed by the World Youth Honors Choir at Interlochen Arts Camp in the summer of 2018. He recently composed for legendary cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, at a music-education workshop in Fairbanks, Alaska as part of a series focusing on Climate Grief and Climate Change.

Exploring a combination of performance and education, Eli focuses on the importance of listening to and learning from today’s youth. After working to destigmatize mental health in school as president of his town’s Youth Advisory Committee, Eli began composing pieces about issues plaguing students in the education system. His recent works focus on human connection and the way people interact with one another.

These themes are also present in Eli’s arts administration path where focuses on education and community engagement. After leading music classes at HomeFront, a family homelessness shelter for families in Central New Jersey, Eli began working towards integrating arts programs into schools serving a lower-income population. Eli is currently working at Matriculate, an education-equity non-profit in New York City.

Eli recently graduated with a B.M. of Music Composition and Music Education from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University under Dr. Felipe Lara and Dr. Laura Parker; he attended on a piano scholarship. He began his music composition studies as a high school student taking lessons from Dr. Craig Levesque at Westminster Choir College and Dr. Carrie Magin at Interlochen Arts Camp.