We prove that the system of subordination equations, defining the free additive convolution of two probability measures, is stable away from the edges of the support and blow-up singularities by showing that the recent smoothness condition of Kargin is always satisfied. As an application, we consider the local spectral statistics of the random matrix ensemble A + U BU * , where U is a Haar distributed random unitary or orthogonal matrix, and A and B are deterministic matrices. In the bulk regime, we prove that the empirical spectral distribution of A + U BU * concentrates around the free additive convolution of the spectral distributions of A and B on scales down to N −2/3 .