Ofri is a singer, pianist and songwriter based in Sydney, Australia.
Contact at ofri@ofrimusic.com.
Photographed by Benjamin Freeman @ben_freeman_photography
Ofri doesn’t really like bios. In fact, it’s exactly this kind of self-aggrandising writing that the 23-year-old Sydney-based artist would rather avoid altogether – something that’s obvious once you spend any amount of time with the direct and unashamedly candid rumination that consists her particular brand of chamber folk. Perhaps even more immediately noticeable than her frankness is her voice, a wild animal which can inhabit every spectra of expression, from raw emotionality to heartfelt delicacy with every shade in-between. It’s precisely that assured confidence - those idiosyncrasies of a voice well-worn - that imbues her songwriting with a richness and clarity of concept that elevates her art.
A keen musician from an early age, Ofri was quickly shepherded into music lessons after it became apparent that her love for singing to trees from swing sets wouldn’t abate anytime soon. Over a decade later, years after those lessons had become an indistinct memory, she picked music back up on a whim and found that this time her passion stuck fast. In just a few years Ofri would quickly become a talented and charismatic jazz performer, playing with her university’s advanced jazz ensembles, along with other established Sydney artists including Emily-Rose and Nick Henderson (of Emily-Rose and the Wild Things).
“That Heavy Magnetism”, Ofri's debut album, is the culmination of four years’ hard work, with many a life-defining experience woven throughout, along with a long list of influences and inspirations (Fiona Apple, Regina Spektor, and Weyes Blood, to name a few). There’s a sense of growth and expansion, intimacy and space, inevitability, vulnerability, and quite a bit of existentialism. It’s part 90s art-pop revivalism, part Lilith Fair, part freak folk, and yet completely, utterly Ofri.
Photographed by Megan Donnelly