Ofer Bashan
Ofer Bashan is a composer, singer-songwriter and music instructor. His songs have topped Israeli charts and have been performed by major Israeli vocal artists. Ofer was born and raised in Israel, and traveled around the world as a child, including 3 years in Nigeria. He completed his B.A. in Classical Piano Performance at The Rubin Academy for Music in Jerusalem, with honors. The first single form his debut album was the most played tune in the Israeli radio and media in Israel. In his second album, one of the songs was the second most played tune for 2009, along with other songs from the album played widely at the most prominent Israeli radio and television stations. The album included a duet with Miri Mesika, one of the most successful vocal artist in Israel. Ofer has performed all across Israel and has written songs for distinguished Israeli vocal artists such as Miri Mesika, Harel Skaat, Amir Fey Gutman, the first winner of “Israeli Idol”, among others. Additionally, Ofer has worked as a musical director and composer, and has taken part in acclaimed theatrical shows, cabarets, the biggest children festival in Israel, video dance festivals and musical events in London, NYC and Tel Aviv. He studied acting and dance, and collaborated with “Beit Zvi,” one of the leading Israeli institution for performing arts. Ofer’s third album was released simultaneously with his acceptance to the Master’s program in Composition at NYU, from which he recently graduated (focused on scoring for Film & Multimedia and Songwriting), with support by the Billy Joel Merit Scholarship. Today Ofer aims to write for American vocal artists, films, as well as to perform and teach.
1) What or who inspired you to want to be an artist?
I never chose to be an artist; I simply connected to my environment through music before I connected through words – I spoke my first words at the age of four. Music is who I am, and is, for me, a more certain fact about myself than the colors of my eyes.
2) What was your creative journey that has brought you to where you are in your career today?
This journey is endless, and I feel I’m only beginning. In fact, each and every song and piece is a journey of its own, and I try, rather than observe it, to just write and be as genuine as possible. The journey will define itself, and every definition from my side would distract from the main and only important thing: the music.
3) What do you need as an artist today?
I need and feel the desire to reach more hearts to which I can deliver my art, more platforms through which I can connect with people.
4) What creative project are you working on now?
I just scored an animated film, planning to embark on a performance, and focusing on collaborating with American lyricists and performers. At the same time, I keep collaborating with Israeli and international artists, as well as writing instrumental music.
5) Where do you see yourself and your career in 10 years?
Music music and music – in any shape and form. Hopefully I’ll write for American pop artists, as well as for classical performers, for films, theater and dance, and perform on my own.
6) What does it mean to you to be an Israeli artist?
I think that art is a universal language, which connects people from all over the world. Music is created from the purest place and has the ability to give wings to people’s dreams. Being an artist is being a hunter of goodness and beauty, and this is something that people have inside, regardless of their nationality, gender, age etc.
7) What does it mean to you to have an organization like the America- Israel Cultural Foundation supporting Israeli culture in the past 76 years?
It is tremendously important to support art! To support art is to support goodness, sensitivity, liberalism, humanism, compassion and so many other things. Wars can take a life. Art can give life.
