Ofri Nehemya

Israeli drummer Ofri Nehemya, has marked himself as one of the most prominent Israeli drummers in the global jazz scene, collaborating with world wide known artists including Avishai Cohen (bass), Ben Wendel, Shai Maestro, Omer Avital, Aaron Goldberg, Avishai Cohen (trumpet), Gilad Hekselman, Eli Degibri and many others.

Ofri was born on January 10th, 1994 in Givatayim, Israel, to a musical family; his father is a drummer and his mother is a singer. Since a very young age, when music was all around, Ofri exposed to different kinds of music including Rock, Pop, Fusion and more. Around the age of 3, he picked up the drumsticks for the first time, playing simple grooves only a few months later. From the age of 8 Ofri was taught by his father for the next 4 years, playing mostly fusion music. In the age of 12, Ofri started taking piano lessons - Classical and jazz, that gave him the basics of harmony and composition.3 years later, at the age of 15, Ofri started his studies at Thelma-Yellin High school's Jazz department. From that point he was mostly playing jazz music. In high school Ofri started studying arrangment, musicianship and jazz history. At the same time, he was playing in the department's jazz combos and in the high school's big-band.The pick came in the age of 16 when Ofri started playing with some of the leading jazz musicains in Israel as Erez Barnoy, Daniel Zamir, Ofer Ganor, Omri Mor, Amit Friedman, Amos Hoffman and many others.In the age of 17 Ofri met the worldwide known Israeli saxophone player Eli Degibri for the first time, and after a while started playing with his quartet, also sharing the stage with worldwide known jazz musicians as Aaron Goldberg and Reuben Rogers. In the age of 19, Ofri started playing with the well known Israeli bass player Avishai Cohen, touring with him for 1 year all over the world. Later on, Ofri moved to NY and joined the band of NY based bass player Omer Avital, recording numerus albums with his band and touring all over the world. In late 2017, Ofri joined Shai Maestro's band, touring and recording including two albums for ECM records. Ofri is leading his own band 'Ofri Nehemya Quartet' as well as being a major part of the collective GTO trio.

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