I am a Lebanese/Syrian Pittsburgh and Chicago based improvising bassist, researcher, composer, community organizer, and educator. My work focuses on affirming creativity as a fundamental human need, and illuminating the intertwined and always moving nature of human minds, musical traditions, and socioeconomic realities. I am currently a graduate student worker at the University of Pittsburgh.

Master classes include at DePaul University, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Southern Illinois University. Performances include at venues, and with ensembles and artists such as Northwestern University, DePaul University, Chicago Symphony Center, Constellation, Experimental Sound Studio, Fonema Consort, Mocrep, Adiaphora Orchestra, Jessica Aszodi, Yeyha Khalil, Michael Ibraham (National Arab Orchestra), Ronnie Malley, Katherine Young, John McCowen, Phil Sudderberg and more. Eli has been a part of The Bridge - a transatlantic network for creative music and Homeroom Chicago's 10x10 (2015). I have a BA in music from Columbia college where he studied under Dennis Luxion, Chuck Webb, and Dan Anderson. I have also studied upright bass with Anton Hatwich and Greg Sarchet (Lyric Opera of Chicago), and Arabic Maqam based music with Ronnie Malley. Eli regularly curates comedy and improvised music shows with Gilded Records at Cafe Mustache, works with musicians associated with Amalgam Records, and performs with the hip-hop/avant-jazz group Jə'raf and American folk group Can I Get an Amen, amongst many other periodic formations.

As a community organizer, I have worked with the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America contributing to the development of their Socialist Night School program, coordinating political education for the 2019 Chicago teacher and staff strike solidarity campaign, and as a full time organizer with Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL). I have also done work alongside many different Prison and Police abolitionist groups including the Chicago Community Bond Fund, via my partner Ruby Pinto. As a writer, I have contributed to Cacophony Magazine, Midwest Socialist, various Chicago DIY publications, as well as developed pamphlets for Chicago DSA and SOUL.

See the Organizing page for links to related cultural and political organizing efforts I’m involved with.

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