Yshai Afterman — Founder & Director, The Afterman Percussion Conservatory

Biography

A life shaped by rhythm

Yshai Afterman is a leading voice in the international percussion world. He has toured extensively, given masterclasses across the globe, and performed alongside some of the region's top artists. A composer and singer-songwriter, he released two albums - A Line From Here to Nowhere (2017) and Naomi (2019).

His percussion teacher is Zohar Fresco, under whom he studied between 2007 and 2009. He also studied advanced rhythmology under Mark Moshayev, drumset under Avi Diamond, and classical piano under the late Natalia Blumenfeld. He trained in dramatic arts at the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio in Tel Aviv (2005-2008), which shaped how he communicates music and draws expression from his students.

"Teaching has become another expression of my art. I treat it with the same commitment and wholeheartedness as I treat my music. The evolution of my students is important to me and I feel responsible for each one of them."

For over twenty years, Yshai has studied continuously alongside his teaching - currently piano, harmony, and jazz under Tomer Bar. He knows intimately what it means to sit on the other side, to struggle, to grow, to be changed by a teacher.

From 2016 to 2024, Yshai served for eight years as Head of the Percussion Department at Maqamat — the School of Eastern Music in Safed, Israel: the world's first professional conservatory dedicated to musical traditions based on the maqam system.

Teaching online since 2010, he has built what students and educators consistently describe as the most methodical and complete teaching available for these instruments anywhere in the world. The group lesson methodology has no equivalent online.

In Brief

The work

More than a decade of online teaching, hundreds of students across four instruments, and a methodology built on the same rigour Yshai brings to his own practice.

Online teaching — since 2010

16 years

Sixteen years of online teaching, long before it became the norm. One of the most experienced online percussion educators working today.

Group lessons taught

1,700+

Seven years of teaching this method to successive cohorts of students worldwide — the depth that only repeated teaching produces.

Students worldwide

Global

USA, Canada, Australia, Greece, Spain, Germany, China, Japan, Brazil, India, Taiwan and more — a genuinely global community.

Head of Percussion · Maqamat

For eight years (2016–2024) Yshai served as Head of the Percussion Department at Maqamat — the School of Eastern Music in Safed, Israel, the world's first professional conservatory dedicated to maqam-based musical traditions.

Hundreds of concerts

A working performer with a deep international stage career. The experience of live performance informs everything — the physicality, the musicianship, the presence a musician brings to a room.

Dramatic arts

Formally trained at the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio in Tel Aviv. The study of dramatic expression shapes how Yshai communicates, holds a room, and draws out musical expression from his students.

An eternal student

For twenty years, Yshai has studied without interruption — currently piano, harmony, and jazz under Tomer Bar. He knows intimately how it feels to be a student, and that empathy runs through everything he teaches.

Endorsements

Instrument partners

Yshai works closely with a carefully chosen group of independent instrument builders — master craftspeople whose work he uses personally and recommends to his students. Choosing the right instrument matters enormously at every level, and Yshai is happy to advise students on instrument selection as part of their studies.

Meinl Cooperman Drums Zelazek Drums Requena Percussion Baraka Percussion Nakhle Percussion Doubleyou Drums