Israeli drummer Ofri Nehemya is an agile and nuanced performer known for his post-bop and modern creative jazz work. A child prodigy, Nehemya started playing with some of his home country's leading jazz names while still in high school before recording with the likes of Avishai Cohen, Omer Avital, and others. A regular member of pianist Shai Maestro's ensemble, he has appeared on both 2018's The Dream Thief and 2021's Human.

Nehemya was born in 1994 in Givatayim, Israel into a musical family with a father who played drums and a mother who sang. He started playing drums at age three and quickly distinguished himself as a prodigy. Taught by his father for four years from the age of eight, he then studied piano for three years before attending the Thelma-Yellin High School for the Performing Arts, the same alma mater as pianist Shai Maestro, with whom he would later go on to play. While still in high school, Nehemya was already playing with some of Israel's leading jazz names, such as Amos Hoffman, Omri Mor, and saxophonist Eli Degibri, whose quartet he joined at the age of just 17, playing on the albums Twelve and Cliff Hangin'. Two years later, while studying at Berklee -- to which he had won a full scholarship -- he started touring with bassist Avishai Cohen, playing on his album Almah. Nehemya also appeared on albums by guitarist Shachar Elnatan and bassist Omer Avital. In 2018, he joined pianist Shai Maestro's trio for their ECM debut, The Dream Thief, replacing Ziv Ravitz. He was also on board for Maestro's sophomore ECM outing, 2021's Human. ~ John D. Buchanan, Rovi