Matti Caspi

Matityahu (Matti) Caspi was born on 30 November 1949 at Kibbutz Hanita in the Western Galilee, Israel. He was the second of three children of Aryeh Caspi, who immigrated from Bessarabia, and Shurika, who immigrated from Iasi, Romania. In 1939 his father had Hebraized the family surname, Argentaru, to Caspi. The family was of Romanian and Bessarabian Jewish ancestry.

At eight months old he contracted polio. At about five he began playing the recorder and the mandolin. Around the age of eight he would go to watch the harmonica player Shmuel Gogol, who offered him a harmonica on condition that he learn the piano. In the collective kibbutz system, lessons had to be approved by the community; Hanita agreed to fund his studies and even bought him a piano, which was unusual at the time. His father pushed for the decision, according to Ynet. At about 15, an arranging exercise set by his teacher became, in his own account, the turning point from theory to practice.

Caspi studied piano at the conservatory in Nahariya from about the age of ten. At 16 he appeared on Kol Yisrael's youth talent programme Teshu'ot Rishonot. At 17 he recorded his first song, "Leitzan Kippurim", for a compilation of young talent, which also included his performances of "HaMe'ushar BaAdam" and "Hofei Zahav". His formal musical training was in classical piano, but he became a self-directed multi-instrumentalist, eventually playing piano, guitar, bass, drums, harmonica, mandolin, oud, accordion and synthesiser on his own records.

In 1968 Caspi was drafted into the IDF and joined the Southern Command Band, composing songs for its programmes. His "Ani Met" (lyrics by Yoram Taharlev), sung with Gadi Oron and Ya'akov Noy, was one of the band's biggest hits. After their service the trio became Lo Ichpat Lahem (They Don't Care) and released one album in 1971.

In 1970 he composed the songs for the musical "Ir HaGvarim" and, through auditions for it, met pianist Shlomo Gronich. In 1972 the two staged "Behind the Sounds" (Me'ahorei HaTzlilim), documented on a 1973 album and revived in 1984, 2002 and 2009. In 1971 he produced his first album for another act, HaDudaim's "HaOlam BeShahor Lavan". Through the early 1970s he wrote hits for Chava Alberstein ("Eliezer Ben-Yehuda", "Yemei Binyamina"), Ofra Fuchs ("Shir Ahava"), Yaffa Yarkoni ("Ahoti HaKetana"), Oshik Levi ("Ze MiKvar"), Netanela ("Shir HaYona"), Yehudit Ravitz ("Mishehu", "Lakachta Et Yadi Beyadcha") and many others.

His debut solo album appeared on 18 June 1974, with Caspi playing every instrument. Arik Einstein had encouraged him to sing his own songs. His second album (1976), with lyrics mostly by Ehud Manor, included "Hineh Hineh", "Brit Olam" and "Lo Yadati SheTelchi Mimeni" and is regarded as one of the finest Israeli albums ever made. In 1976 he composed and conducted Israel's Eurovision entry "Emor Shalom" by Chocolate, Menta, Mastik, which finished sixth.

In 1977 he produced "Eretz Tropit Yafa", Hebrew versions of Brazilian songs, launching a wave of Brazilian music in Israel. Albums including "Side A Side B" (1978), "Another Side" (1980), the ambitious "Twilight" (Sof HaYom, 1981), "My Second Childhood" (1985), "Side C Side D" (1987) and the one-instrument album "One to One" (1988) followed, alongside two albums of Sasha Argov's songs (1982 and 1984).

As a producer he shaped records by Danny Robas ("Misgarot", 1983), Erez Halevi, Gali Atari ("Mamri'a BaRuach"), Oshik Levi, Meir Banai ("Geshem", 1987), Yehoram Gaon and Shoshana Damari, and composed, arranged and produced Riki Gal's albums of 1987, 1988 and 1996.

After years abroad he returned in 1997 with "Live in Arad", followed by "Another World" (1998), "Duets" (2000), "You Are My Woman" (2005), "Soul Mate" (2010) and "Like in a Dance" (2017). He judged the first season of Kochav Nolad, taught on Beit Sefer LeMusica (2011 to 2013), scored the most-played Israeli song of 2014 with Aviv Geffen's "Mistovev", and from 2018 toured with Shalom Hanoch in "Ha'ikar Ze HaShirim".

Caspi married three times. After his army service he married Galia Superstein, whom he had met in the Southern Command Band; they divorced after about a year. In 1975 he married actress Doreen Lubetzky, whom he met in the Air Force entertainment troupe; they had a daughter, Brit (born 1981), and a son, Bar (born 1985).

In late 1989 he met Hakeau (Raquel) Wenger, who worked at the Brazilian consulate in Israel. They began living together in 1990, and amid widely reported divorce proceedings they left Israel for Toronto with their baby daughter Suyan (born 1992), moving to Los Angeles in 1993. Caspi and Wenger married in California in 1994, and their second daughter, Shon, was born in 1995. The family returned to Israel in 1997. Hakeau wrote many of his later lyrics, and Suyan sang with him on several recordings, including the 2015 album "Matti Tells and Suyan Sings".

He lived at Kfar Vradim from 2000 to 2012, later in Kfar Saba, from 2019 in Rosh HaAyin and, after 2022, in Tel Aviv. In the 2015 documentary "Vidui" (Confession) he spoke about mental health struggles, and in February 2019 he disclosed an autoimmune disease that cost him sight in one eye and damaged his hearing.

Caspi described his own style as "world music". He cited classical music, Balkan and Eastern European Gypsy music, Brazilian bossa nova, jazz and rock as influences, and said he was influenced more by Eastern European and Balkan rhythms than by Brazil, despite his fame for Brazilian projects. He called himself a deliverer of melodies who wrote first for himself rather than to order. He was known for keeping a distance from celebrity and for a dry, absurd sense of humour, which surfaced in comic sketches, children's work such as "Buba Matti" and the humorous album "Songs in Tomato Sauce".

In public life he was a vocal opponent of Israel's COVID-19 Green Pass and refused vaccination, saying in 2021 that he would not cooperate with what he called dictatorship.

Caspi is regarded as one of the defining figures of Israeli popular music. Critics credit him with raising the harmonic bar of Hebrew song, marrying local pop with Brazilian jazz and opening the way to a richer, multi-layered Israeli musical language. Musicologist Tsippi Fleischer, who wrote a book about him, called him "the genius among his fellow artists" and said he had invented his own musical language. Many singers who worked with him, including Riki Gal, Danny Robas, Meir Banai and Gali Atari, became stars through records he composed, arranged or produced. His partnership with lyricist Ehud Manor produced dozens of standards, and his songs continue to be performed and recorded by generations of Israeli artists, as the 2025 tribute concert in his honour showed.

Kinor David, Composer of the Year (1974). Army Radio annual Hebrew song parade, Composer of the Year (1975 and 1976); with Ehud Manor he wrote the parade's song of the year, "Hineh Hineh" (1975). ACUM Prize for lifetime achievement in music (Ynet dates the award to 2005; Hebrew Wikipedia to 2010). His 1976 second solo album was named the most important Israeli album of the 1970s by Yedioth Ahronoth in 2008. In August 2025 leading Israeli artists, among them Shlomo Artzi, Shalom Hanoch, Riki Gal, Miri Mesika, Aviv Geffen and Eviatar Banai, honoured him at the tribute concert "Singing Matti Caspi" at the Ra'anana Amphipark.

Selected albums: They Don't Care (1970/71), Behind the Sounds (1973, with Shlomo Gronich), Matti Caspi (1974), Matti Caspi (1976), Side A Side B (1978), Another Side (1980), Twilight (1981), Matti Caspi Sings Sasha Argov (1982), Behind the Sounds 1984, Matityahu and Alexander (1984), My Second Childhood (1985), Side C Side D (1987), Crazy Pais Tropical (1987), One to One (1988), Songs in Tomato Sauce (1990), Buba Matti (1992), Matti (1993), Live in Arad (1997), Another World (1998), Duets (2000), Behind the Sounds 2002, You Are My Woman (2005), Soul Mate (2010), Ma Zot Ahava live with Riki Gal (2012), Like in a Dance (2017).

Film and television: score for the film "Hagiga BaSnuker" (1975), songs for the children's series "Carousel", the children's video "Buba Matti" (1992) written and directed by Shemi Zarhin, judge on the first season of Kochav Nolad, music teacher on Beit Sefer LeMusica (2011 to 2013), and the documentary "Vidui" (2015).

In October 2020 Caspi announced he was leaving Israel for Florence in protest at the government's COVID-19 policies and the Green Pass. He refused to be vaccinated, cancelled concerts when the Green Pass was reinstated in 2021, and joined petitions to the High Court of Justice against the restrictions, all of which were rejected (September 2021). He returned to Israel in 2022 after the restrictions were lifted.

In May 2024 he was widely criticised for a social media post claiming that the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack resulted from betrayal within the security establishment rather than from a security or intelligence failure.

In July 2025 his daughter Brit publicly objected to the crowdfunding campaign for his cancer treatment, which nevertheless reached its target quickly.

In May 2025 Caspi revealed that he had advanced cancer with metastases throughout his body and cancelled all planned concerts. In July 2025 he told Ynet that his left hand was paralysed and he could no longer play, and launched a crowdfunding campaign for treatments, some abroad and outside the state basket of medicines. On 30 August 2025 more than 7,500 people attended a tribute concert in his honour at the Ra'anana Amphipark; he came on stage in tears, thanked the audience, and left after a few songs because of his condition.

He died of cancer at Ichilov Hospital (Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center) in Tel Aviv on 7 February 2026, aged 76; the news was announced by his family and the hospital the following morning. On Monday 9 February 2026 his coffin lay in state at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center, where Riki Gal, Shlomo Gronich and Danny Robas sang in his memory before thousands of mourners, and he was buried that day at the Menucha Nechona cemetery in Kfar Saba. His family said: "The light of our lives has gone out."