We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Haim Mazar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Haim below.

Haim, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I had the pleasure of creating the soundtrack for the Disney nighttime spectacular “Believe! Sea of Dreams” which performs nightly in front of thousands of people at Disney Tokyo Sea in Japan.
My job was to arrange and orchestrate famous Disney songs as well as to compose original underscore for the entire show. The music serves a big role in the show which takes place on a huge water lagoon and includes fireworks, projection mapping and floating barges with live performers and LED screens. One of the most satisfying aspects of working on such an epic show was to use all of my skills as a musical storyteller and to reimagine some of Disney’s biggest hits to a live setting which audience can experience at the park and immerse themselves in. To do so, I recorded a large symphony orchestra at the iconic Abbey Road Studios as well as a large choir of singers and soloists to produce a soundtrack that would match the grandiose nature of the show.
One of the highlights of the project was for me to collaborate with the incredible team of Disney’s Imagineers and to attend the premier and experience the show with thousands of people for the first time.

Another meaningful project for me was scoring my first major feature film “The Iceman” starring Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder.
The film and my score received critical acclaim and it opened a lot of doors for me as an up and coming composer working in Hollywood.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been living in Los Angeles since 2008 and I write original music for film, TV and theme park attractions. The music that I write provides the emotional backdrop of the story. It is usually an instrumental track that helps the narrative of the story and provides a stylistic tone to match and enhance the visuals in a cinematic way. Some of my credits include original score for film and TV shows such as The Iceman, The Taking of Deborah Logan, Woke, Sneakerheads, Teen Mom, Desperation Road, and the upcoming Half Baked 2.
I also write and produce a lot of music for Disney Theme parks around the world. That includes music for ride attractions, background music, night time spectacular shows and immersive sound experiences. Recent projects include original background music for Adventureland, music for Oogie Boogie Bash in Disneyland, Believe Sea of Dreams – Disney Tokyo Sea nighttime spectacular, and music arrangements for the upcoming Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
In addition to being a composer I also enjoy teaching music for Berklee College of Music where I teach film scoring classes from my studio in Los Angeles.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

As the cliche goes: Find something you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life. I think that is probably the most rewarding aspect of being an artist.
We get to share our talents with audiences and sometime even heal and make people feel better.
I get to wake up every day, go to my studio and write music for a living, and I don’t take that for granted.
There are many challenges and ups and downs but I still get to do something I am extremely passionate about and I have been doing way before I was getting paid for it. Getting to combine your love and passion with making a living is truly wonderful.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I love music and everything related to it. Even more so, I love matching music to different idioms and using music as a story-telling device or as a backing track to evoke specific emotions. My goal is to keep creating new music and to collaborate with as many artists as I can as part of my journey. I also strive to study and teach as much music as I can, as I strongly believe in music education. Making music is a joy, I love working with different artists from all over the world and to connect with other musicians, musically and personally. I believe music and the arts make the world a better place and I am always passionate about new projects and telling new stories through music, it’s something that drives my creative journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://haimmazar.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/haim.mazar/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@haimmazarmusic
• Other: Believe Sea of Dreams: https://youtu.be/YNqfO2n1-lA?si=-2bj1SKmK7KwwkSr

Image Credits
Sean Galland, Jon Kopaloff