All proceeds are donated to childhood cancer research.

Adar Broshi died at the age of nineteen on April 5th, 2019 after two and a half years of fighting cancer. The music on this album was written during this period. Memories of joy and happiness, an uncertain future, the hope and the determination to fight on, all are expressed in the songs of this album.

The album’s title Songs From A Dream refers to the last song, “Due To Love,” which was conceived in a dream Adar had in the summer of 2018. In the dream there was a gospel choir of men and women singing this tune in two voices.

Adar was born in Amsterdam in 1999, a happy, kind, and ever-curious boy. When he was two and a half years old his brother was born. Upon seeing him for the first time Adar said “when the baby will grow up we shall sing a song together.” This prophesy came true when Adar at fifteen and his brother Matan, who learned guitar, started playing and performing together.

Being raised on three different continents, Europe, the Middle East and North America, Adar was exposed from an early age to many styles of music from Bach and Mozart to Thelonious Monk and Stevie Wonder. From Israeli folk music to Flamenco. He had a phenomenal musical memory and he could play a tune after hearing it only one time weeks or months before with chords and bassline.

When Adar was 7 years old I took him for a piano lesson with Avi Adrian. As part of the very first lesson, Avi had Adar play a basic blues tune. Avi has a cockatiel parrot “Arik” who showed a supernatural talent for improvising blues. When Avi and Adar started to play a blues tune on the piano Arik joined. I made a video of this “jam session” and uploaded it to YouTube soon after in 2007. The clip titled “Blues Singing Bird” has since amassed nearly a quarter million views.

Adar left over four hundred recordings. Some are original compositions and some are renditions of songs he liked. Our mission is to share this beautiful legacy with music lovers around the world.

ODED BROSHI


I feel that having known Adar in person was a privilege, if only for the reason of meeting a rare soul rich in music, drawing, photography, and film making. I was his first piano teacher when he was seven years old.

After Adar’s tragic, early departure his father, Oded, and I decided to introduce his music to the world. While delving into Adar’s music I was surprised by the range of emotions it evoked in me. As his teacher I may have given him the basic tools, but by listening to his compositions I truly felt he was teaching me something about his soul, a primal sense that stemmed from various sources of rhythm and blues but at the same time was expressed in a new language he developed and mastered. The feeling was of a story, a picture, a landscape view. It is difficult to describe music with words, but I can definitely say that I am captivated by its movement, its flow.

I am proud and excited about this opportunity to share Adar’s music. While working on this project I felt I had a daily dialogue with Adar. I love his “voice” and I approached this project with endless love and commitment to being true to the source. I feel Adar is still with us all the time—an angel living among us.

AVI ADRIAN


ABOUT THE SONGS
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Phonebook – That groove of a feeling opening one’s phonebook to look up your friends.

Melodica – A melodica is a small, hand-held, free-reed instrument similar to the pump organ. Adar recorded the first version of this tune on a melodica. A deep and melancolic melody he played often in the last year. Possibly about coming to terms with the impending demise.

If You Were Here – Adar loved the ¾ “waltz time,” which was always like a dance of joy for him. He listened a lot to Bill Evans, who used this tempo often, like in “Waltz For Debbie.”

Strange Ground – was conceived as an orchestral piece. Adar even recorded an orchestral arrangement with a sampled orchestra. Avi added a part B, which was missing, an addition that elevated the piece to a new height.

Gorolla – Where Thelonious Monk meets Brazilian Samba.

Oil Music – unfolds like a story about a journey with different chapters and variations. It was written during the summer of 2018 after the cancer returned the second time.

Rain Dance – A clash and eventual blend between very different musical styles and rhythms—a Jewish “Hasidic” dance, a waltz, and Flamenco.

Adrian’s Run – At the age of 16 Adar made a short film “Adrian’s Dream,” featuring 30 actors and musicians. Adar wrote this piece for a scene in which Adrian, a teenager, is running to catch the train to the city to meet a girl. (The film is online on Vimeo.com.)

Something Changed, Sitting In The Wind and If You Were Here (track 3) are love songs Adar wrote with lyrics and recorded in July 2018.

Due To Love – In the summer of 2018, in between tough chemo treatments, Adar woke up one morning, walked to the piano, and described a dream he just had of a Gospel choir made of a men’s section and a women’s section singing in two voices. He played the two voices on the piano.