IN CONVERSATION WITH ELIANA GLASS
interview by ANOUK WOUDT
Playing on Sunday at Rewire Festival in the Hague for the first time, Eliana Glass is one performance you won’t want to miss. Born in Australia, raised in Seattle, and now based in New York, her work as a singer, pianist, and visual artist encapsulates a delicate journey that spans heartwarming melodies with a dash of melancholia. Through teaching under mentors such as Andrew Cyrille, Ben Street and others during her time in the New School’s jazz program, she has orchestrated her own particular sound. Her music dedicates special attention to sparseness, voice, and her relationship to the piano, as a lifelong entity since she was a kid. In 2025, she has released her debut album, E, an album comprised primarily of piano and voice, and now we are highly anticipating the release of her follow-up EP, E at home, coming out on April 24th.
photography JULES MUIR
Born in Australia, raised in Seattle and now based in New York, you’ve lived in quite a few places. Did moving throughout these places have any influence on your work?
I like nature a lot. I think being in Australia, as well as growing up in the Pacific Northwest, gave me an appreciation of that. My dad's from New Zealand, so I feel very special to have a person in my life who has a connection to really amazing natural environments. I just love the outdoors, and it’s not that I specifically try to incorporate it into my work, but it’s just something that's a part of my life, so it might end up in the music in some way.
Your music treads between heartwarming and melancholic melodies. How did you discover your sound?
I think it was just what naturally made sense to me. It was my own way of expressing how I feel and what I like or what sort of intrigues me. It never felt like something I meant to do to achieve a certain kind of feeling, but it was just sort of what I enjoyed making naturally.
photography LAURA BRUNISHOLZ
You started playing the piano from a very young age, and your music is still heavily piano-based. What keeps you coming back to this instrument?
I really like how linear the piano is and how you can see everything– it’s a very visual instrument. As opposed to a guitar, which is from a different angle, and it's just not as linear an instrument; although it’s also a great, and it’s transportable, which would be more convenient, but I never learned to play it.
Although a keyboard would also be more easily transportable, it really feels like something is missing if I accompany my music with a keyboard, since my song are just piano and voice. It feels out of place to me, so I like playing a real piano if I can. But voice is really my main instrument out of everything.
You note Nina Simone and Elizabeth Fraser as big inspirations for you, which is a beautiful combination. How do you allow this to come through in your work?
Well, I love Nina Simone's approach to live performance; it feels kind of stark, with her use of just piano and voice, and I find that really moving. I've always been really inspired by that, and her kind of simplicity, which is not really totally all that simple; it's also very complex, but in a way, it has this kind of stark, austere-ness that I like. So I always really love that sound, and I don't even really think what I do expresses those people’s music necessarily, but I just love them.
Sometimes people hear certain influences, and that could be because outside listeners might just be more perceptive to hearing that inspiration in my music than even I am. Because for me, I'm just sort of playing my own interpretation of how I feel, but sometimes things I'm subjected to get pulled into that. I don't purposely say, “I want this type of sound”. Though actually, sometimes, as a way to provoke new ideas, I will think about the way that, for example, Trish Keenan from Broadcast sings a certain style and put that into my music, so that's not totally true.
photography CAMILLE VIVIER
Do you have any other artists that you’ve been inspired by lately?
Well, I've been listening a lot to Broadcast, as I mentioned. That's a huge inspiration. I love the simplicity of some of her demo recordings. They're really raw, and a lot of times it's just the vocals alone, and I can really resonate with that kind of approach. They're just very simply beautiful, in a complex way.
This Sunday will be your first time playing at the Rewire festival. How are you feeling about the performance– nervous, excited, a little bit of both?
I feel like nerves never go away. I've decided that. After singing for so long, I feel like that's never going to happen, which I think is also really important to accept when performing. I think it's good: nerves are good. And sometimes you can jump over them too, and feel like they're a little bit behind you. Sometimes, you can get so nervous that you can get them out of the way, which can be helpful. But I'm excited too. It's a little bit like a balancing act. It's my first time playing in Europe, and tomorrow will be the first performance of my European tour, so that’s really exciting.
photography JULES MUIR
Your newest EP, ‘E at Home,’ is coming out at the end of this month. What does this upcoming release mean to you?
Oh, it's super special. I'm really excited to release those songs, because they are something I made many years ago with my brother, who is a big part of my music. He's a great songwriter, and so these songs have a real familial significance. They are very nostalgic too, because we made them at home on my mom's piano, so it feels like they’re preserving a certain time. So it's fun to have them be released since I truly love every song. I don't always love the recordings or things I make– it can be hard to make something you really love. But with this EP, it's different; I really love these recordings, and it feels special that we made them together.
For people who haven’t listened to your music before, describe your music in three words.
Sparse, austere and maybe inviting or emotive.
photography JULES MUIR
