Brian Shankar Adler is an interdisciplinary percussionist and composer. Described as "a polyrhythmic force… New York City gritty yet still somehow capable of evoking the delicacy of a summer breeze…” (JazzTimes), his work transcends the terrain between genre and geographic region.

Adler has performed internationally, in caves, forests and adjacent glacial ice fields as well as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and The Stone. He has been recorded on over fifty albums, including: once like a spark (with saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom), Echoes of the Gomero (featuring Rasa String Quartet) and Ecologies (with electronics artist Jesse Stiles).

Playing primarily a hybrid drum set that includes North Indian tabla, Argentine bombo legüero and an array of found objects, Adler's work explores the perception of time, the communicative properties of gesture and the anthropogenic footprint on regional ecosystems. With equal focus on improvisational and compositional practices, he uses rhythm as a tool for collaboration.

An accomplished composer, Adler’s works have been praised by All About Jazz as “profoundly exquisite… striking interior chords, where the heart and the mind's inner ear intersect..." A 2025 Center for Arts and Social Justice Fellow, he collaborated with scientists at the Shaw Institute to create Dance of the Cephalopod, an interdisciplinary project bridging art and science to engage communities around plastic pollution. His notable commissions include A Memory of Fire (Palaver Strings), Echoes of the Gomero (Rasa String Quartet), We Are a Body of Water (Bates College Gamelan Orchestra) as well as music for Appleton Rum’s “Find Your Rhythm” ad campaign. Adler has been a composer-in-residence at Antenna Cloud Farm, Avaloch Farm Institute and Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work has received multiple honors, including grants from the Maine Arts Commission, Composers Now, Space 538, and ASCAP.

Brian Shankar Adler has toured, performed and recorded with Ballet Hispanico’s Doña Perón, Kamala Sankaram’s operas Thumbprint (LA Opera), A Rose (Houston Grand Opera) and The Jungle Book (Glimmerglass), César Alvarez's Egg (Lincoln Center) and Elizabeth Swados’ final theatrical productions The Nomad and The Golem. He traveled to Germany to perform with singer Sunny Kim and Kuwait to perform with oudist Ahmed Alshaiba. Adler has been featured on the cover of DownBeat Magazine, in Jason Bivins’ book "Spirits Rejoice," The Center for Deep Listening's "A Year of Deep Listening," NPR's "New Sounds," PBS's "Next at the Kennedy Center'' and Modern Drummer Magazine. His music video, "Mantra” won best music video at Transcinema International Film Festival in Peru and an official selection at the Quiet City Film Festival in New York City.

In 2013, Brian Shankar Adler performed as a guest soloist with La Bomba de Tiempo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Upon returning to the United States, he created Human Time Machine – a system of conducted hand gestures used to generate, develop, and destroy rhythmic ideas in real time. Adler directed a percussion ensemble that shared the same name, holding a three-year residency at Barbés alongside performances at Roulette Intermedium and the Queens World Fair.

Adler has worked with: Kinan Azmeh, Jay Clayton, Magos Herrera, Guillermo Klein, The Michael Leonhart Orchestra, Frank London, Kate McGarry, Matt Moran, Mali Obomsawin, Emilio Teubal and Ray Vega. He is a member of Bombay Rickey and performs environmental-activism with Bash the Trash.

A Lifetime Arts/National Guild grant winner, Brian Shankar Adler is said to have "revolutionized the accessibility of rhythmic pedagogy." He published A World of Percussion (Circavision, 2013) connecting rhythm, language, mathematics and environment through a study of shared musical concepts from around the globe as well as Embodied Rhythm (Circavision, 2025), designed for students of any instrument to develop rhythmic vocabulary. Adler is currently on faculties at: Bates, Bowdoin College and University of Southern Maine. He is a Vic Firth artist and has offered masterclasses and residencies internationally. 

Brian Shankar Adler holds a Bachelor of Music with honors from New England Conservatory and a Master of Fine Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts.