composer life work
COMPOSER
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Maestro SERGIU NATRA of international reputation is one of the greatest, most creative and best, classical composers in the world in all times.
His creations belong to the best, most creative and greatest symphonies, orchestral and chamber music works, created in the world since ever, among which the works mentioned bellow. He is the best composer in Israel in all times.
NATRA's ingenious creations, that belong to the greatest, most imaginative, original, creative and of the highest quality, symphonies, orchestral and chamber music works, ever written worldwide, include among others:
Symphony in Red, Blue, Yellow and Green, Horizons Symphony, Invincible Symphony, Memories Symphony, Tongues of Fire Symphony, Future In The Past symphony, The Meaning Of Life Symphony, Earth and Water Symphony, 2020 Symphony, Secrets Symphony, SpaceTime Symphony, The Bundle Of Sticks Symphony, Always Symphony, The Rise of The Phoenix Symphony, March and Choral for symphony orchestra, Festive Overture for symphony orchestra, Variations for Piano and Symphony orchestra, Song of Deborah for symphony orchestra and voice, Sacred Service for symphony orchestra, choir, baritone and soprano, Pages from a Composers Diary for orchestra, Developments for viola and orchestra, Espaces Sonores for harp, flute and string orchestra, Music for Oboe and String Orchestra, Sonatina for Harp, Ode To The Harp, Esqiusses for Flute and Piano, Music for Violin and Harp, Commentaires Sentimentaux for flute, viola and harp, To Be Free for harp, flute, clarinet and string orchestra/quartet, Music for piano/harpsichord, flute, clarinet, 2 violas, cello, double bass, String Quartet No. I & II, Three Street Cortèges for concert piano, A Dialogue with Gabi for piano, Forevermore for piano, Fractals for piano, Eye Of The Storm for piano, Duo Piano Symphony, Dimension Continuum for two Pianos, Piano Trio no. I, Future in the Past for multi piano.
Dozens of his creations are phenomenal and very important.
Already in his youth NATRA was considered a genius in composing music and having a brilliant mind.
He was awarded for the excellence in composing music already at the age of 21 and of 27 the very important and prestigious awards, the George Enescu Award for works written at the age of 19 and respectively the Country National Award for works written at the age of 25.
His superb, very creative, imaginative and rich music works for the harp, which is one of the most difficult instruments to write to as well as to play, made him one of the most performed and heard living composers in the world during the recent decades. Having a very rare instinctive sense of music sounds including of the unique resonance and sound of the harp, in his compositions the harp literally sings.
His superb, very creative, imaginative and rich music works for the harp, which is one of the most difficult instruments to write to as well as to play, made him one of the most performed and heard living composers in the world during the recent decades. Having a very rare instinctive sense of music sounds including of the unique resonance and sound of the harp, in his compositions the harp literally sings.
The highest professionalism and phenomenal creativity, intelligence, the deep, abstract and analytical thinking, vast knowledge and expression ability, the modesty and personal integrity, are all revealed both in his personality and in his very serious writing.
His extensive works with their unique characteristics in the past seventy-seven years, are sources of inspiration and influence that enrich immensely the world culture, leaving marks on composers, artists, musicians and listeners from all over the world. These works are also an important legacy for the future generations.
NATRA writes serious classic music and his works are of the highest quality, originality, creativity, interest, intelligence, complexity, innovativity, intensity and excitement, in a global scale.
The works are highly successful and performed by world-renowned performing artists, conductors and orchestras, who praise the quality of his music. The composer and creations were defined, among other, by prominent composers, such as George Enescu- who personally awarded NATRA a prize named after him, Leon Klapper, Alfred Mendelson and by important conductors, such as Edward Lindenberg, Theodor Rogelsky, Mendy Rodan, Sergiu Comssione, as "ingenious", "masterpiece", "brilliant", "excellent", "monumental", "highest level of universal musical creation", "phenomenal". Works of his written for harp were defined as "the greatest work ever written for the harp".
Among his many masterpieces, there are the following additional works:
Miracle of the Peoples for choir and orchestra, Dedication for voice and orchestra, Prelude and Nehemiah for voice, choir and orchestra, Four Poems for voice, choir and orchestra, Spacetime for string quartet, Prayer for Harp, Figurative Abstract for piano, Harmonic Sound Image, Modus Vivendi for piano, Music for Violin and Piano, Existence for piano and clarinet, Confession for Piano, Fantasia for Cello and Piano, Variations for Harpsicord, Piano Trio no. II, Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Ancient Walls for harp and Trombone, Séparément Ensemble pour deux harpes, Sonatina for Trumpet, In Motion for Marimba, Toujours sonate pour harpe and many other works.
His special affinity for writing to the harp standout, whether for solo or for ensembles. His works for harp are obligatory or optional works, in harp competitions, international festivals, music academic faculties, all over the world.
NATRA has a clear European orientation, a clear personal and distinct stamp and a particular writing style with melodic flow, polymodal language and ideas, gradual development and shaping of motive material.
He makes use of an exceedingly rich palette of sound-colors, unusual instrumental combinations, central and non central registers of instruments (and voices), playing techniques which are natural and comfortable and succeed in producing optimal sound, with its fresh rhythms and sonorities.
His creation is of the highest level and excels in its musical intelligence, themes, ideas, richness and imagination. His works are also characterized by the frankness and independence of expression, free of any constraints and without surrendering to fashions.
NATRA's sources of inspiration are drawn, among others, from life and global events.
The creation for NATRA is like the title to one of his works – a sacred work:
it involves devotion, diligence, perseverance and giving the best. In addition to his phenomenal creativity, he has the rare ability to imagine/"hear" simultaneously in his mind, while composing music, multiple music sounds of multiple and different instruments as they would sound in reality.
This ability allows him to compose music and to write the notes and chords directly on the manuscript, without playing them in advance. He has an absolute pitch and excellent skills in all the elements of creation, including the orchestration and in all writing techniques for the stringing, winds, brasses, percussion and of course the harp, which allow him to express ideas in a language with different characteristics and colors while exploiting the full range of dynamic possibilities of each instrument.
The composer SERGIU NATRA is a unique figure in the human and professional landscape. His music and life represent tremendous achievement and his work attests to the consistency of professionalism, excellence and incessant creativity in composing classical concert music in various arrangements - orchestral, chamber, solo and vocal.
In addition to being a fascinating and brilliant composer, Prof. NATRA is a scholar and a man of the highest culture and spirit who among others speaks six languages.
Scores and recordings of the composer are to be found at:
The NATRA Publication (publications@natra.xyz), The Israel Music Institute, The Library of Congress in the United States, The Lee B. Harold Library in the United States, Harpospher France, The National Library of Germany, dozens of important universities libraries and education institutions around the world.
The composer and his works appeared over the years thousands of times in books, encyclopedias, pen writings, articles and publications, which were published in several languages around the world including Hebrew, English, French, German, Romanian, Spanish and others.
His creations were performed and broadcast worldwide, among others, in:
Israel, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Netherland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Swissland, Czech, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia.
They are also accessible online in this site and were accessed by large audiences around the world, from over 66 countries and 520 cities, including the following (listed at countries and cities):
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Zambia.
LIFE & WORK
Maestro SERGIU NATRA of international reputation is one of the greatest and best classical composers in the world in all times.
His creations belong to the best, most creative and greatest symphonies, orchestral and chamber music works, created in the world since ever, among which the works mentioned earlier. NATRA is the best composer in Israel in all times.
NATRA born in 1924 (Bucharest), in a family- NADLER, LÖEW and LUSTGARTEN, originating in Germany, Czech Republic and Austria.
Been exposed in his childhood, especially at home, to serious classical music and to its sounds ambience, the ambition to become a composer and to compose music was lighted up in him. At the age of six he had began particular music and piano studies that included analyzing musical texts, which were followed by studies at the Jewish conservatory (1942) and at the Music Academy of Bucharest (1953).
His studies were at the highest level and included all the courses, among which, theory, composition, orchestration, conducting, jazz, modern music, with prominent composers such as Leon Klepper and Michael Andricu. Shortly afterward he started to teach modern music, been one of the most modernist and revolutionary composer. He also organized activities for gifted composers.
NATRA began composing at an early age and already in his youth he was considered a genius in composing music, very innovative, revolutionary, modernist and a pioneer.
His works were performed frequently by symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles in East Europe.
For the works March and Coral for symphony orchestra and Future In The Past for symphony string orchestra (short symphony) he was awarded (at the age 21) the very prestigious award, at that period one of the most important award in the world, the Enescu composition award, personally by Enescu himself who predicted a "very bright future" to the young composer. Shortly afterward he was awarded (age 27) the Country National Award.
The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed March and Coral already in 1947 under the baton of Edward Lindenberg.
During the horrors of the Nazis and afterward during the communist regime, NATRA SERGIU and his family, Holocaust survivors and who were considered part of the "elite", suffered from persecution, forced labor, prison time and confiscation of all their properties.
Some of the composer's music creations were not preserved and destroyed.
The symphony Earth and Water for symphony orchestra, was his last work that was performed in Romania before immigrating to Israel.
A period of three years after submitting the emigration request to the authorities and until emigrating to Israel in 1961 he and his wife SONIA NATRA- well known sculptor and artist worldwide, had been under a ban from publishing and exercising any professional activities.
A year after immigrating to Israel the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sergiu Comissiona, performed the Horizons Symphony for string orchestra. Music for Violin and Harp was performed by the violinist Miriam Fried and the French harpist Francoise Netter afterwards.
Although the fact that NATRA is the best and most prominent composer in Israel, incredibly he had suffered, as others, from the actions and attempts by incompetent, incapable, unprofessional and corrupted individuals, including low quality composers who have been heavily involved in music politics and organization, of suppressing talented composers and preventing the performances of excellent and high quality creations.
For sixty years the composer is involved in important frameworks which are related to music and the harp, to which he has a special affinity, as a senior management member, a judge and an important composer. This includes activities in the well known International Harp Contest in Israel and in the World Harp Congress.
Alongside composing music, Prof. NATRA had taught outstanding students and between 1975 -1985 he lectured as a professor at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv University, the 20th century music, composition and forms analysis.
Over the years, he nurtured, outlined the way and left his mark on generations of students. With many of his students he kept excellent personal and professional relations to this very day.
Prof. NATRA important contribution in the field of musical study, theory and composition in Israel and abroad was for forty years. As an excellent lecturer and a professor with a very extensive knowledge and deep understanding in the fields of classical music and its sources, in the study of theory, shape analysis and composition, he lectured and taught with a great devotion all his students. With some of them he maintains rare friendships and professional relations. As always he was unstinting with his time and attention and uncompromising in his insistence on excellence, though always had patience and gentility.
The extent of his knowledge and the quality of his teaching is undoubtedly also manifested in the fact that his students had reach excellent achievement, some had turned to be successful composers, conductors and musicians all over the world. Many of those who were fortunate and had the opportunity to study with him, had attest that they understood later on the tremendous importance of what they had received and learned from NATRA as well as about the significant advantage they had obtained due to him, relative to others. They had also realized the feasibility of the ideas expressed by him, among others, that music - composition and performance, must be treated as a living organ. He had an exceptional and rare ability, as well as willingness, to teach and work with gifted students at their early age and in their most formative stage of musical development, a period when it is the most difficult to communicate with them. Few composers in NATRA's status, were unselfish in dedicating their precious time to very young musicians.
NATRA had created over 130 music works, including 15 symphonies, which belong to the greatest symphonic, orchestral and chamber music works in the world. This despite the ordeal and restrictions from which he and his family had suffered over the years. There is no doubt that if this composer had been active in different places and times, the world of music would have been enriched by hundreds additional wonderful and diversified creations of this exceptional composer.
He continues to create and in the recent years he had composed several new works, including Nehemiah Symphony for orchestra which was performed (partially) with great success by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (2010), the symphonic orchestras in Germany and Russia, Cantosonata for Harp premiered in Taiwan (2012), Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (2011) and Esquisses for Flute and Piano (2013) premiered in 2016, Konzertstuck for Two Pianos and symphony orchestra, Future In The Past for Piano in Four Hands, premiered in 2016 USA, A Dialog with Gabi for piano, Symphony in Red, Blue, Yellow and Green- the best symphony ever written by an Israeli composer, was premiered in 2015 and would be performed in Europe and in the USA, Memories Symphony, Ode To The Harp which would be performed at the World Harp Congress and USAHIC, 2020 Symphony and many others.
Composing and creating classic music with the highest quality - which is by far the most difficult, complicated and challenging task in music and in art, at an age of 96, is extremely rare and is a virtue of only extremely talented and very professional composers.
NATRA SERGIU and NATRA SONIA, have two sons, Danny Natra and Gabi Natra.
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