Sergiu Natra

Sergiu Natra was born in Rumania in 1924 and was educated at the Music Academy of Bucharest. He started to compose in Rumania and there attained his first successes winning the George Enescu Prize in 1945 and the Rumanian State Prize in 1951. Natra came to Israel in 1961 and continued to work intensively both as a composer and as a teacher of composition.

He is the recipient of many prizes including the prestigious Prime Minister’s Award. Natra wrote orchestral works (among them the “Sinfonia” for strings, “Toccata,” “Voices of Fire”); vocal works including the “Song of Deborah”, the cantata “Ness Amim ” and the “Sacred Service,” as well as chamber and instrumental music.

His works for the harp have attained international popularity among leading harpists the world over, in particular his “Sonatina,” “Prayer,” “Divertimento,” and “Music” for violin and harp are widely performed. Of his work the composer says: “… I have tried to synthesize the specific elements of my last compositions; that is to strive to be entirely free from any constraints in form and to be true to my deep interest in the neo-baroque as well as polytonal and polymodal harmonies. One could ask: ‘Is this looking back or is it exploring the future?’ Clearly the manner of using chords on the harp and sonorities that sound well with string instruments – and I do not refer to consonance versus dissonance – influenced my writing. Is this not, perhaps, just the way we have found our direction in the entire development of music over the last twenty years? “