Israeli musicians and music lovers were this month mourning the death of Matti Caspi, described as a musical renaissance man, who has died aged 76 after battling cancer. Caspi was a composer, arranger and singer who worked with Israel’s leading songwriters and performers over six decades to produce some 1,000 songs in a style instantly recognisable as his own.
Rock, jazz, bossa nova and classical music were among the many musical styles Caspi fused to create the distinctive sound that made him one of the most influential figures in Israeli music. He released dozens of albums, often producing them himself, demonstrating a unique ability to compose catchy harmonies and lyrics.
In May 2025, he revealed on social media that he had been diagnosed with advanced metastatic cancer. Many of his admirers praised the dignity with which he faced his diagnosis. A fundraising campaign raised more than $1.5 million (£1,100,000) for his treatment, which included experimental techniques not included in the national healthcare system.
The Jerusalem Post described Caspi’s sound as distinctive and eclectic. As a performer and composer, he was particularly inspired by the composer Sasha Argov, with whom he recorded two albums.
His songs combined a multitude of traditions, fusing Forties-style crooning with playful, often emotional and sensual elements. He blended jazz, pop, rock, Brazilian bossa nova and folk with eastern European, Mizrahi and Balkan styles, developing the standards of Israeli music over time.
It was not unusual to find him playing every instrument he included in his arrangements – guitar, bass, drums, piano and harmonica.
Caspi’s music echoed the lives of Israelis during their most intense experiences – joy, heartbreak, anguish and optimism. This is highlighted in songs such as Brit Olam (Eternal Covenant), Ekh Ze SheKochav (How Is It That a Star), Hine Hine (Here Here), Lo Yadati SheTelchi Mimeni (I Didn’t Know You Would Leave Me), Shir HaYonah (The Song of the Dove) and Ma Zot Ahava (What is Love?)
In a tribute his family wrote: “With aching hearts and deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our beloved husband and dear father. The light of our lives has been extinguished. His love and his creativity, which he always gave, will remain a part of us for ever.”
Despite his growing fame, Caspi was never contained in an artistic ivory tower. He always felt deeply connected to his audiences. He collaborated with many famous names, including Leonard Cohen, Ehud Manor, Yehudit Ravitz, Shlomo Gronich, Shalom Hanoch and Chava Alberstein, among others.
During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Cohen came to Israel to perform with Caspi for troops across the Sinai Peninsula. They were beside a Sinai landing strip as C-130 Hercules planes landed and released soldiers. As each platoon made its way to the Suez Canal, Cohen sang his song Like a Bird on a Wire for them, accompanied by Caspi on guitar.
That day ended with deep poignancy as the two musicians joined one of the trucks to help carry wounded soldiers to helicopters – the same troops they had performed for earlier.
“I’ll fight in every way possible, I’ll be stubborn to the end,” Caspi said in July, by which time his illness prevented him from playing the piano or the guitar.
Matti Caspi was born of Romanian-Bessarabian descent in 1949 in Kibbutz Hanita, in the western Galilee.
A happy child, he felt connected to his birthplace throughout his life. He would spend hours stomping out rhythms and singing songs and learning to play the recorder.
A turning point in his childhood came when he was introduced to Shmuel Gogol, a Polish-born Israeli musician and Holocaust survivor, who played the harmonica, and inspired him to learn musical instruments.
Gogol received his first harmonica from Janusz Korczak – the heroic Polish doctor who ran an orphanage for Jewish children during the Holocaust and, rather than abandon them to their fate, accompanied them to their deaths in Treblinka.
Gogol came to Israel, and founded the Ramat Gan harmonica band, which performed at a local nursing home near Caspi’s kibbutz.
He told Caspi that he would gift him his harmonica if he learnt to play piano. So, with the support of his parents, Caspi studied piano at the local Nahariya conservatory with a Romanian-born pianist, Raphael Dragan, and practised at the nursing home.
Caspi’s father would sit with him at lessons to translate Dragan’s Romanian into Hebrew for his son.
After receiving Gogol’s harmonica, Caspi added it to his instrument repertoire, and composed music for it.
It was during his army service in the Southern Command Troupe, which accepted him as a singer, composer and musical producer, that Caspi formed his first musical band, a trio with two friends, Gadi Oron and Ya’akov Noy, called The Three Fat Men. He subsequently released his first big hit, Ani Met (I Am Dying).
On his discharge from the army, he received a call from Arik Einstein, a pioneer of Israeli rock music. While playing music at Einstein’s home, Caspi made the discovery that he also had a singing voice. His marriage to Galia Superstein followed, but it did not last, and they divorced less than a year later.
In 1972, he met actress (Patty) Doreen Lubetzky, and they married and had two children, Brit in 1981 and Bar in 1985. But they, too, separated, and in 1990 he met Raquel Wenger with whom he emigrated to Canada. They married in 1994 in California and had two children, Suyan in 1992, and Sean in 1995.
However, a shock awaited him a few years after his return to Israel, when a Tel Aviv court in 2002 found him guilty of bigamy, ruling that he was still legally married to Doreen at the time of his 1994 marriage to Raquel.
He was given a six-month suspended sentence and a small fine. An appeal failed, and in 2004 the original sentence was upheld. It did nothing to diminish his appeal to his audiences, as he continued to produce albums and tour the country.
Caspi was revered by reviewers as a musical renaissance man, a great harmonist who created complex musical compositions related to the Israeli cultural experience. In 2014, during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, Caspi performed his old favourites for the southern kibbutz communities, and those trapped in their safe rooms.
In July, 2021, during Covid restrictions, Caspi criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “fascist” measures and cancelled a series of concerts after entry limitations were reinstated for large events.
He joined Shalom Hanoch in dedicating an album in December 2023 to soundman Guy Illouz, murdered in captivity by Hamas after being taken hostage by the terror group during October 7, 2023.
Caspi’s touring and performing career ended in June 2025, when his left hand was paralysed by the cancer, preventing him from playing guitar and piano.
President Isaac Herzog described Caspi as “one of the greatest Israeli composers of our generation… as in a line from one of his unforgettable songs – Someone up there is looking out for me – Matti Caspi left us far too soon, one of the greatest Israeli creators of our generation, and has gone on to watch over us from above.
“And we are left with his masterful works: with melodies that bestowed grace on wonderful texts and granted them eternal life; with compositions that shaped Israeli music for decades; with arrangements in which his uniquely distinctive fingerprint was so evident.
“For nearly six decades, his immense talent accompanied us: the child from Kibbutz Hanita… Already at the age of five, he played several instruments. He was a soldier in the Southern Command entertainment troupe; a singer with a unique voice that was so easy to recognise; a music producer who opened doors for many singers; and also a special person, with a half-smile at the corner of his mouth and a sense of humour you could find only in him.”
Culture and sports minister Miki Zohar described him as “the giant singer and creator who touched all our souls and brought us classics that became invaluable assets in Israeli music”.
Caspi is survived by his wife Raquel and his four children.
Matti Caspi: born November 30, 1949. Died February 8, 2026
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