Israeli musician Matti Caspi, whose compositions are considered part of Israel’s core repertoire, has died of cancer at the age of 76.
Caspi composed complex yet accessible and transcendent melodies, such as “In the Warm Summer Nights,” “A Place for Worry,” and “Noah.” He is particularly known for his work with songwriter Ehud Manor, with whom he composed iconic songs such as “Brit Olam” and “Here Here,” and collaborated on “Pais Tropical,” a project arranging and translating Brazilian songs into Hebrew.
Caspi also composed “Emor Shalom,” Israel’s entry for the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest in the Netherlands, and even conducted the contest’s orchestra during the performance. The entry, performed by the band Chocolate, Menta, Mastik – which included the iconic singer Yardena Arazi – finished in fifth place.
The songwriter first shared his illness publicly last May, writing on Facebook that he had to cancel all his planned concerts to focus on treatment. A public fundraising campaign to fund his treatment reached millions of dollars within days.
“I can’t play, I can move my fingers but only barely,” Caspi said. “The doctors sound like lawyers to me. I don’t accept it – I see death in front of my eyes, but something in me is fighting. I’m stubborn.”
In August, many prominent Israeli artists held a tribute show for Caspi, including Shlomo Artzi, Aviv Geffen and Gali Atari. The proceeds made from the show was eventually donated to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
In 2005, Caspi won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel, or Acum. The organization said that Caspi is an “extraordinarily talented musician who made his mark on Israeli music in a way only a few could.”
“He combined a high musical talent with a great emotional intensity, and created complex, harmonically rich and very original songs,” Acum said. “Aside from his immense contribution to Israeli music, he had a great influence on an entire generation of musicians who were inspired by him to create a new sound.”
Caspi was born in 1949 in Kibbutz Hanita, near Israel’s border with Lebanon. He began studying music when he was ten, learning piano. He served in an army band, like many of Israel’s most prolific musical artists, and began releasing music with his fellow bandmembers after he finished his IDF service. He then began composing songs for other artists, including “Emor Shalom.”
Caspi has shared that Arik Einstein, one of Israel’s most iconic singers, was the one who motivated him to sing himself rather than only arrange songs for others.
Caspi is survived by his three children, two from his first wife, Doreen, whom he married in 1975, and one from his second wife, Raquel.
In 1993, Caspi immigrated to the United States after filing for divorce from his wife. During his time in the United States, while the proceedings in Israel were underway, he appealed to an Orthodox rabbi, Gabriel Cohen of the Beverly Hills Rabbinical Court, to grant him the divorce.
Rabbi Cohen, whose rulings are usually accepted by the Israeli rabbinical courts, wrote to the Rabbinical Court in Israel, asking them to authorize him to grant the divorce. The Israeli Court refused, adding that it thought the request inappropriate since Caspi’s divorce proceedings were still underway in the Israeli courts.
Cohen nevertheless granted Caspi the divorce in 1994, and specified in the divorce papers that Caspi was eligible for remarriage. In October 1994, after receiving the divorce papers from Cohen, Caspi married Raquel Wagner in a civil ceremony in California. He was subsequently convicted of bigamy by an Israeli court in 2002.
In 2019, Caspi told Israel’s Channel 13 that he suffered from an autoimmune disease, which caused him to slowly lose his sight and hearing. Caspi was known as a critic of Israel’s policy in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, following which he left the country for Florence for two years. In 2022, he moved back to Israel, living in Tel Aviv.