Harris Eisenstadt (b. Toronto, 1975) is a Brooklyn-based drummer and composer whose music bends between the intimate and the expansive, with what The New Yorker calls a “deep-sighted and elastic view of improvised music.”

Over the past two decades, Eisenstadt has appeared on around eighty recordings, releasing more than twenty albums as a bandleader and leading many other projects across a wide range of settings. In 2024, he won Downbeat’s International Critics Poll for Rising Star Percussion after years of steady recognition. His albums regularly land on year-end critics’ lists for their adventurous spirit and clarity of vision.

A longtime explorer of African and Diaspora music traditions, Eisenstadt has made extended research trips to Gambia, Senegal, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico City, and Miami. He plays frequently for Afro Cuban ceremonial drummings around New York City.

Eisenstadt has published essays, articles and radio programs on NPR, Public Radio International, Afropop Worldwide, and in  John…