After composing for the best artists, the conductor finds his own voice
Tomer Addadi has spent most of his 39 years studying and playing classical music, but the sounds he loves the most are a combination of classic, Disney, and pop, his ultimate crossover style.
“What I like doesn’t have a real definition,†Addadi said. “Everything for me begins with a melody.” Today, this conductor and composer returns to the forefront with a new project, “Duet with the Composerâ€.
Addadi sings his own songs with special guests, a roster of well-known Israeli singers, supported by his own piano and string quartet work, and recorded in a classical music auditorium without synthesizers or other sound equipment to create a pure , its clear.
The plan is to record more of his music over the next six months and then play it on stage.
The first song of the project is “K’mo Nahar”, “Like a River”, in which Addadi welcomes singer Shlomit Aharon.
It was a very different experience for Addadi, a composer who has created songs for everyone from Harel Skaat, Shiri Maimon and Omer Adam to Gali Atari, Shlomi Shabat, David D’Or and Avraham Fried.
Having the opportunity to be the leader is a new experience, Addadi said.
“I’ve spent years behind singers and marketers, and it’s comfortable being the mastermind of something but not having the fire whether it’s good or bad,” he said. declared. “Expressing your voice like that is scarier than usual but also rewarding. “
Addadi’s voice is deep and smooth, with the sound of an experienced singer finding his way along the hollows and curves of his music, and with more than a little hint of a Disney-style soundtrack. .
“I hear ‘Frozen’ ten times a day,” laughed Addadi, who was juggling her three young children at home on the day of this interview. “If the performer is a great singer with a wonderful voice, I don’t care what genre he is from.”
Composer and conductor Tomer Addadi (Courtesy of Lorena Alcaraz Minor)
This young composer considers Leonard Bernstein – the famous conductor who conducted the New York Philharmonic and composed the music for musicals such as “West Side Story” – as his example of someone who has always worked on music across genres that has always found the right note.
This is Addadi’s goal, to create the kind of music that is larger than life, working with great orchestras that have tremendous power and strength, while finding its own musical tone.
Addadi currently lives in Florida, dividing his time between the United States and Israel and working regularly with Israeli artists.
His usual composition projects tend to start with already written lyrics which are then sent to Addadi for musical composition.
“Each song has a different story,†he said. “A lot of times I write a song, then send it to the singer, then we start going back and forth. “
The idea to sing and perform his own songs came directly from several of the singers Addadi worked with, who often asked who was singing the musical demos he had composed for them.
“I love to sing but I also conduct and I can’t do everything,†he says. “How could I just go and sing?” But that’s what led to the project.
There is something more authentic at your fingertips when a singer performs the song the way he imagined it, Addadi said.
“It’s more about how you listen to Matti Caspi or Yoni Rechter or Idan Raichel,†he said. “It’s not that they are better singers, but there is something about singing the songs the way I imagined them. Singing with these singers in a classical setting is something very intimate for me.