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Dylan Abrams

Dylan Abrams was a Black American percussionist at Juilliard School and a member of the theory study group that included Travis Yoon, Brooke Kim, Sarah Montalvo De Luca, Gavin Worth, and Aditi Sharma. He lived with Gavin in the garden/parlor duplex at The 146th Street House, where the pair kept the third bedroom available for Travis.

Early Life and Background

Both sides of Dylan’s family were Black American. His father, Jeffrey “Jeff” Abrams, was born on May 6, 1983, and his mother, Erica Abrams, was born on August 24, 1984. Dylan grew up on the outskirts of Philadelphia with Jeff, his older brother, Jonathan “Jon,” who was born on October 19, 2000, and his younger brother, Nolan, who was born on January 27, 2008. Erica was nineteen when Dylan was born and died from complications of undiagnosed peripartum cardiomyopathy after Nolan’s birth. Jeff and his mother, Tracy, cared for Erica and the children throughout her final postpartum period.

Erica died at home beside Dylan, who had not understood what had happened. Jonathan was the one who realized she was not breathing and alerted Tracy.

Jeff encouraged Dylan’s early interest in drums rather than treating the noise as something to correct. Dylan had initially liked making as much noise as possible; he later developed the timing, control, and musical instinct that made percussion a serious path.

Born on June 8, Dylan loved having a summer birthday. It meant the swimming pool was part of the day whenever he was home.

Education

Dylan attended Juilliard School as a percussionist. He enjoyed the full range of percussion rather than treating one instrument as his sole specialty. Admission to Juilliard remained significant to him because he had come to New York from Philadelphia with the sense that the school had been an improbable ambition rather than an ordinary next step.

Within percussion, Dylan was especially drawn to drum kit and mallet percussion, including marimba. He was also a strong orchestral player, valued for an uncanny internal sense of time and rhythm. When CRATB later needed a drummer other than Charlie or Riley, Dylan could step in without the arrangement losing its center.

Personality

Dylan was playful, theatrical, and quick to turn an ordinary errand or disagreement into a bit. He teased people with close attention and enjoyed elaborate, harmless pranks, although he had learned to recognize when enthusiasm had gone too far and to repair the damage rather than defend himself. He treated Travis differently, reserving his pranks because he understood that the same joke could land as pressure rather than affection.

He also had a pronounced sense of fairness. When he believed someone had been careless or disrespectful toward a friend, his anger tended to last after the immediate moment had passed. His protectiveness could make him press a point too hard, particularly when he believed silence would allow mistreatment to become ordinary. When he could not change the choice of the friend he was protecting, his anger could settle on the person who most visibly represented the larger situation. This sometimes made his early judgment more personal than the available evidence supported. Direct contact did not make him like someone, but he could not honestly dismiss skill or attentive behavior once he saw it for himself.

In sexual relationships, Dylan treated consent as ongoing and paid close attention to hesitation or withdrawal instead of relying on an earlier yes. He did not use sex as a substitute for an apology or an unresolved conversation, even when he wanted physical reassurance after a fight.

Dialogue and Voice

Dylan spoke with a warm, quick voice and a light Philadelphia cadence that became more noticeable when he was irritated. He thought out loud, made direct observations, and often turned an exchange into a joke or a bit without losing the point. His humor was blunt rather than evasive: he would say what he meant, then make it funny if he could. When the matter was serious, the jokes fell away. His sentences became shorter, cleaner, and more direct, particularly when he believed someone was being mistreated. He could sound confrontational before it became clear that he was trying to protect the person in front of him.

Physical Characteristics

Dylan was a lighter-skinned Black man who stood approximately five feet eight or five feet nine, with a compact, leanly muscular build. His strength showed most clearly through his shoulders and thighs, while his quick balance and restless physicality made him seem ready to move at any moment. He had thick, slightly wavy hair that he kept longer on top and usually left a little disheveled. His lean, longer face had a gently squared jaw, strong expressive brows, and dark-brown eyes. His usual crooked grin could make mischief obvious before he said anything; when he laughed without guarding it, his smile opened fully across his face.

Health and Neurodivergence

Dylan was diagnosed with ADHD, combined presentation, during childhood. He took stimulant medication during childhood but stopped during adolescence because he disliked the side effects. By his Juilliard years, he was no longer taking stimulant medication.

Dylan also struggled with both falling asleep and staying asleep. Unfamiliar beds and surroundings made it especially difficult for him to remain asleep. On rough nights, he could appear to have slept until noon after spending several hours awake during the night and falling asleep again near morning. He was difficult to wake once asleep and tended to become irritable when someone interrupted him as he was falling asleep or woke him from established sleep.

His sleep onset was also marked by frequent, sometimes forceful hypnic jerks. They became more pronounced after strenuous activity, extended periods of wakefulness, or emotional agitation and stopped once he moved into sustained sleep.

Relationship to His Body

Dylan ran regularly for pleasure and self-regulation rather than competition. He kept little structure around it, choosing familiar routes and distances by feel instead of following a training plan. Running gave his excess energy and agitation somewhere physical to go and often helped him wind down, although pushing too hard or running too late could leave him exhausted without improving his sleep. He also entered fundraising 5Ks for causes he cared about, including women’s health. After Travis’s death, he began running cancer-related events in Travis’s memory.

Items and Personal Effects

Dylan wore a chain and the watch his father gave him for his eighteenth birthday. The watch was one of the few accessories he treated with consistent care.

Personal Style and Presentation

Dylan dressed with the same range he brought to percussion. His wardrobe moved among soft graphic T-shirts and overshirts, thrifted button-downs and vintage finds, and clean athletic layers. He liked novelty in both color and texture, often building an outfit through layers rather than following a fixed palette. His preferred footwear was sneakers. Dylan and Gavin shared a sustained interest in sneakers, though Dylan wore favored pairs hard in the city while Gavin protected his collection more carefully. Because Gavin rarely asked for gifts and responded to the right pair with unusual, unguarded joy, Dylan sometimes encouraged the collection by giving him a carefully chosen pair or directing him toward a strong sale, resale listing, or thrift find.

For performances, Dylan wore the required black concert clothes without allowing them to erase his taste. His socks often carried the private detail: bright patterns, odd motifs, or colors that matched the sneakers he would rather have worn.

Family and Core Relationships

Gavin was usually the grounded counterweight to Dylan’s impulsiveness. He could identify the consequence Dylan was about to ignore, insist that an entertaining idea still needed a workable plan, and redirect him before enthusiasm became a larger problem. Gavin could drift off as soon as he was no longer talking, navigating, or otherwise engaged. One night, while Aditi and Sarah were at rehearsal, Gavin intended to wait up for Aditi but fell asleep on the gray sectional in the lower duplex. Dylan photographed him and sent the image to Aditi with the message, “ur bf was supposed to be waiting up lmfaoo.” Dylan called the ability to sleep nearly anywhere “a gift” and treated it as an enviable quirk before Gavin’s worsening fatigue made the pattern more difficult to dismiss. Dylan teased Gavin about acting like the group’s voice of reason, but he trusted that judgment and noticed how badly Travis’s death disrupted the steadiness everyone had come to expect from him.

During Gavin’s junior-year pain crisis, Dylan was the first friend present when Gavin stopped playing during a rehearsal and could not explain the pain. He remained with Gavin through the escalation, called emergency medical services, and helped Aditi lower him to the floor after he fainted. Travis’s recent death meant that Gavin’s failure to respond registered first as the possibility of another friend dying. Dylan acted through that fear by updating the dispatcher, confirming that Gavin was breathing, and warning the arriving paramedics that touch intensified his pain.

Ezra Cruz

Before Dylan met Ezra Cruz, he treated Ezra as the face of everything he opposed about Travis’s housing decision. Dylan already wanted Travis in the room he and Gavin had kept ready at the 146th Street House. Ezra’s polished housing photograph and active online presence gave Dylan specific material for that frustration, and Dylan searched for interviews and performances that he could bring to Travis as proof of his judgment. Ezra and Travis did not contact each other until late in the summer, but Dylan focused on Ezra’s delay rather than Travis’s.

Meeting Ezra at Juilliard complicated Dylan’s certainty. During their first jazz session, Dylan followed Ezra’s displaced rhythmic figure, told him exactly where he had landed late, and raised an eyebrow when Ezra corrected the phrase in the next chorus. Dylan still teased him and refused to supply the praise Ezra kept trying to draw out of him. He had listened closely enough to identify the altered ending in one of Ezra’s performance clips, however, and confirmed that he would return for their next session.

Father

Dylan’s father, Jeff, was quiet by nature and often came across as shy. He had been picked on for his quietness when he was young, but he was also well-liked and remained so as an adult. Jeff provided a steady counterweight to his son’s exuberance. He could meet Dylan’s humor and enjoy the noise around him while also recognizing when Dylan needed grounding. After building his career as a carpenter, Jeff established his own carpentry business and workshop. Its success moved the Abrams family from working-class circumstances into the solid middle class.

Sarah Montalvo De Luca

Main article: Sarah Montalvo De Luca and Dylan Abrams

Dylan first met Sarah Montalvo De Luca on an admitted-students tour before their freshman year at Juilliard. They began dating at Juilliard. Dylan asked Sarah out directly, and she made him wait a beat before saying yes. Their ordinary disagreements tended to be playful arguments over dinner, plans, or small preferences rather than serious conflict. Dylan was particularly good at recognizing when Sarah needed the joking to stop and a serious answer to begin.

Personal Life

Residences

At The 146th Street House, Dylan shared the garden/parlor duplex with Gavin Worth. The two friends maintained an open room for Travis, who continued to live at Meredith Willson Residence Hall during the academic year.

Social Life and Community

Dylan’s closest Juilliard community included Travis, Brooke, Sarah, Gavin, and Aditi. The group used the 146th Street House for meals, study sessions, and ordinary visits as well as for shared housing.

Dylan had a large appetite despite his lean build. Sarah loved cooking, and he ate whatever she made with obvious enthusiasm; he could finish a substantial meal and still appear ready for more.

Characters Supporting Characters Living Characters Musicians Black Characters Black American Characters Disabled Characters Neurodivergent Characters