The Israeli composer Sarah Feigin was born in Latvia. She studied piano and composition at the Academy of Music in Riga and obtained her “Master of Music” qualification there in 1959. In 1972 she settled in Israel where she founded a conservatory a year later. Sarah Feigin was director of this conservatory for ten years and taught music and composition. From 1973 to 1990 she worked for “Jeunesses Musicales d’Israël”, organising concerts and presenting and explaining her works, which contain many elements from Jewish folk music, to young people.
Reflections on a Niggun, originally composed for clarinet and piano and dedicated to the Israeli clarinettist Ytzhak Katsap, is a rousing concert piece and presents ideal opportunities for development for both instruments, also in the version for viola. This composition which, in Sarah Feigin’s words, takes up the three most important elements of Jewish music – prayer, song and dance – received an award at the composition competition in Miami.
