Sergiu Natra

Life and work

Sergiu Natra is a Romanian-born (1924) in a family originating in Austria and the Czech Republic. 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). 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 titled "March and Choral" for symphony orchestra, 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" for symphony string orchestra, he received the George Enescu award for composition in 1945 (for works composed at the age of 19) and in for "Suite for symphony orchestra" he received in 1951 the Romanian National prize for composition (for works composed at the age of 25).

In 1961, Natra and his wife, Sonia, a sculptor and a multidisciplinary artist, emigrated to Israel. A year later, conducted by Sergiu Comissiona, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed the "Symphony for string orchestra no. II", 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, Prof. Natra taught music, including 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, 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.

An extended list of works is found at Natra's site.

Most of the above related scores were published by IMI in Tel-Aviv and by Harposphere in Paris. 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), The National Library of Israel, The library of Congress (USA) and The Harold B. Lee Library (USA).

The main source of the above list is the composer's documentation and archive. Additional references are found in:.

Awards