Sergiu Natra
Sergiu Natra (12 April 1924 – 23 February 2021) was an Israeli-Romanian composer of classical music. Among Natra's important creations: Symphony in Red, Blue, Yellow and Green, Horizons Symphony, Invincible Symphony, Tongues of Fire Symphony, Memories Symphony, Future In The Past symphony, The Meaning Of Life Symphony, Earth and Water Symphony, 2020 Symphony, Secrets Symphony, Variations for Piano and Symphony orchestra, Song of Deborah for symphony orchestra and voice, Sacred Service for symphony orchestra. He was particularly known for his harp compositions, including ""Music for Violin and Harp"", ""Sonatina for Harp"", "Prayer "for Harp"", ""Divertimento for Harp  flute and Strings orchestra"", ""Music for Nicanor"", ""Commentaires Sentimentaux"", ""Ode To The Harp"" and "Trio in One Movement no. 3". Life and work. Natra was born in Romania as Sergiu Nadler in April 1924 into a Jewish family with Austrian, German and Czech origins. As a child he studied piano and took up music studies in 1932. He continued his studies at the Jewish conservatory until 1942, and graduated from the Music Academy of Bucharest in 1954. He studied, among others, theory, composition and orchestration with Leon Klepper and modern music with Mihail Andricu. He began composing at an early  age and his symphony orchestra composition ""March and Choral"" earned him the status of a modernist in Romania. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed this work in 1947 under the direction of Edward Lindenberg. Natra received many composition awards in composing classical music, including for creations composed at the age of 19 - "March and Choral" and "Divertimento in ancient style", George Enescu award for composition in 1945 and for creations composed at the age of 25 including ""Suite for symphony orchestra"" in 1951 when he received the National Prize for Composition. In 1961, Natra and his wife, Sonia, a sculptor and  multidisciplinary artist, emigrated to Israel. A year later, conducted by Sergiu Comissiona, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed the ""Horizons Symphony for symphony 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, professor 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 Music Academy in the Tel Aviv University (now the Buchmann-Mehta School Of Music) until 1985 . Natra and his wife Sonia, had two sons, Danny and Gabi. He died in February 2021 at the age of 96. 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 a 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 . An extended list of works and their respective audio and video recordings is to be found at Natra's site Most of the composers scores were published by NATRA PUBLICATIONS, some by IMI in Tel Aviv and some 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:.