Yitzhak Sadai was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and immigrated to Israel in 1949. He studied composition at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music under Uriah Uri Boscovich, and also studied with Joseph Tal. Later he worked as a lecturer at the Academy of Music in Jerusalem (from 1960) and the Tel Aviv Academy of Music (from 1966). He wrote about subjects such as music perception, phenomenology, and epistemology, and published methodological books of music. As a composer, Sadai attempted to cross Bergian expressionism (of the Alban Berg school) with the Maqamat system (Arabic modal system), and used, among others, electro-acoustic elements. Sadai composed orchestral music, chamber music, and choral and vocal works, some of them with Jewish themes, such as the cantata, Hazvi Yisrael.
Sources:
Nathan Mishori. 'Sadai, Yizhak.' Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press; Boehm, Yohanan, Uri Toeplitz, and Israela Stein. 'Sadai, Yizhak.' Encyclopedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. 2nd ed. Vol 17. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. 651. Gale Virtual Reference Library; 'Sadai, Yizhak.' The Living Composers Project.
