Sergiu Natra

Sergiu Natra

Sergiu Natra (born 12 April 1924, Romania) is an Romanian and Israeli classical music composer of Israelian and international reputation. In 1961, Natra and his wife, Sonia, emigrated to Israel.[1]

He is known for his compositions for the harp which are performed all over the world, including "Music for Violin and Harp" (1960), "Sonatina" (1963), "Prayer" (1970), "Divertimento for Harp and Strings" (1974), "Music for Nicanor" (1988), "Sonata in One Movement" (1999), "Commentaires Sentimentaux" (2002) and "Trio in One Movement no. 3" (2006).[2]

Life and work

Sergiu Natra is a Romanian-born (1924) in a family originating in Austria and Czechia. As a child he studied piano and music and began particular music studies in 1932, continued at the Jewish conservatory (1942) and graduated from the Music Academy of Bucharest (1954).[3] He studied, among others, theory, composition and orchestration with Leon Klepper and modern music with Michael Andricu.

He began composing at an early age and his work from 1943 for orchestras, called "March and Chorale", earned him the status of a modernist in Romania. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed this work in 1947 under the direction of Edward Lindenberg. For this work and for the "Divertimento in ancient style" from 1943, he received the George Enescu award for composition, 1945 and Romanian State prize for composition, 1951.

In 1961, Natra and his wife, Sonia, a sculptor and a multidisciplinary artist, emigrated to Israel.[1] A year later, conducted by Sergiu Comissiona, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed the "Symphony no. II for string orchestra", which was the last piece he had written in Romania, and the "Music for violin and harp", performed by the violinist Miriam Fried and the French harpist Françoise Netter.

Besides composing music, Natra taught music. In 1975, Natra was a guest professor at Tel-Aviv University, where he taught music of the 20th century, composition, and analysis of forms. He was a professor at the Tel-Aviv Music Academy until 1985. Among his hundreds of students were Lior Shambadal, Rafi Kadishson (composer and conductor), Erel Paz, Ruben Seroussi, Deborah Rothstein Schramm, Dror Elimelech (composers), Yehonatan Berick (violinist), Sally Pinkas, Eugene Alcalay, Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg, Dr. Eran Lupu (pianists), Yoni Farhi (Pianist and conductor) and many others. See: List of music students by teacher: N to Q#Sergiu Natra.

Natra and his wife Sonia, have two sons, Danny and Gabi

Main works

Natra is a composer with a clear European orientation, who has a clear personal stamp and a particular writing style with melodic flow, atonal language, polyphonic idea, gradual development and shaping of motive material. He makes use of an exceedingly rich palette of sound-colors, unusual instrumental combinations, central registers of instruments (and voices), playing techniques which are natural and comfortable and succeed in producing optimal sound, texts in a new language, with its fresh rhythms and sonorities. His works are performed and broadcast all over the world, among others, in Israel, USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Norway, Sweden, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Swaziland, Czech, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Romania, Slovenia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia.

Most of the above related scores were published by IMI in Tel-Aviv[7] and by Harposphere in Paris.[8] Part of the composers scores, the respective recordings, books and articles are found also in libraries, such as, Beit Ariela Public Library and Cultural Center (Israel),[9] The National Library of Israel,[10] The library of Congress (USA)[11] and The Harold B. Lee Library (USA).[12]

The main source of the above list is the composer's documentation and archive. Additional references are found in:.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]

Awards

References

  1. 1 2 Ben, Itzhak (ed.), "Natra, Sonia", Who's Who in Israel and Jewish Personalities from All Over the World, Bronfman, 1985, p. 237
  2. Toeplitz, Uri and Seter, Ronit. "Natra, Sergiu [Nadler, Serge]". In Macy, Laura. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. (subscription required) (Print version: Sadie, Stanley (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Macmillan, 1980, Vol. 13 p. 76. ISBN 0-333-23111-2)
  3. Cummings, David (ed.), "Natra, Sergiu", International Who's Who in Classical Music, Routledge, 2000, p. 261. ISBN 0-948875-53-4
  4. Oestreich, James. R., "A Harp Commands the Spotlight", The New York Times, 10 May 1990
  5. International harp Contest in Israel
  6. World Harp Congress
  7. The Israel Music Institute
  8. Harposphere Paris
  9. Beit Ariela Public Library
  10. The National Library of Israel
  11. The Library of Congress
  12. The Harold B. Lee Library
  13. A Descriptive Bibliography of Art Music by Israeli Composers, Alice Tischler, 1988 (p.172-175), 2011
  14. Die Musik Israels, Max Brod, 1976 (p.106-108, 76, 78, 83, 84, 134, 135, 136, 138, 140, 141)
  15. Contemporary Music In Europe, Paul Henry and Broder Nathan, 1965 (p. 295)
  16. Dictionary of 20th century music, John Vinton, 1974 (p. 507)
  17. Solo vocal works on Jewish themes: a bibliography of Jewish composers, Kenneth Jaffe, 2011 (p. 131, 224, 227, 234, 287, 321, 327, 339, 375, 381, 383, 397)
  18. Listening guide to Israeli works, Dalia Golomb, Ben-Zion Orgad, 1985 (p. 174)
  19. Encyclopedia Judaica, Keter Publications, 1971
  20. The sound of the harp in the holy land, The international harp contest in Israel, William Y Elias, 2002
  21. Tempus fugit- writings about music and musicians, Ruth Guttman Ben Zwi, 2004 (p.368 and others)
  22. Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance, Rebecca Rossen, 2014 (p. 81, 82, 307)
  23. The Music of Israel: From the Biblical Era to Modern Times, Peter Gradenwitz, 1996 (p. 273, 389, 410)
  24. Great Jews in Music, Darryl Lyman, 1986 (p. 309)
  25. Aspects of Music in Israel: A Series of Articles Published on the Occasion of the ISCM World Music Days, Israel, 1980 (p. 22, 25)
  26. Beyond the Baton : What Every Conductor Needs to Know: What Every Conductor ..., Diane Wittry Music Director Allentown and Norwalk Symphony Orchestras, 2007 (p. 275)
  27. Timbral Diversity: An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Solo Works for the Tenor Trombone Containing Extended Techniques, James Max Adams, 2011 (p. 165)
  28. Visions of reform: Congregation Emanu-El and the Jews of San Francisco, 1849–1999, Fred Rosenbaum (p. 275)
  29. Contemporary Israeli music: its sources and stylistic development, Zvi Keren, 1980 (p. 97)
  30. Scholars' guide to Washington, D.C., for audio resources: sound recordings in the arts, humanities, and social, physical, and life sciences, James R. Heintze, Zdeněk V. David, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1985 (p. 262)
  31. Music in Jewish History and Culture, Emanuel Rubin, John H. Baron, 2006 (p. 340)
  32. Music in Education, Macmillan Journals Limited, 1974 (p. 191, 269)
  33. The Jewish lists: physicists and generals, actors and writers, and hundreds of other lists of accomplished Jews, Martin Harry Greenberg, 1979 (p. 146, 281)
  34. Harps and harpists, Roslyn Rensch, 2007 (p. 230, 234, 252)
  35. International Music Guide, Derek Elley, 1978
  36. Who's who in World Jewry, Harry Schneiderman, Itzhak J. Carmin, 1972 (p. 648)
  37. International Who's who in Music and Musicians' Directory, 1998 (p. 401)
  38. Who's who in the Middle East and North Africa, 1978 (p. 901)
  39. Encyclopaedia Judaica, Fred Skolnik, Michael Berenbaum, 2007 (p. 32)
  40. Cello Music Since 1960: A Bibliography of Solo, Chamber & Orchestral Works for Solo Cellist, Donald Homuth, 1994 (p. 190)
  41. Jüdische Musik?: Fremdbilder, Eigenbilder, Eckhard John, Heidy Zimmermann, 2004 (p. 274)
  42. International Directory of Contemporary Music: Instrumentation, 2000 (pp. 322, 469)
  43. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart- allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik, Friedrich Blume, 1979 (p. 851, 1335)
  44. Geschichte der Klaviermusik. 2, Peter Hollfelder, 1989 (p. 1344)
  45. Neue Musik in Düsseldorf seit 1945: ein Beitrag zur Musikgeschichte und zum Musikleben der Stadt, Hans Hubert Schieffer, Hermann-Josef Müller..., 1998 (p. 159)
  46. World Harp Congress Board of directors

External links

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