Blending by Intuition

Image by Emil Salman
Crossposted from Haaretz

Image by Emil Salman
Singing was a necessity and inevitability for Claudia Nurit Henig. Born in Argentina, her mother tongue is Ladino, a language that seems to encompass infinite musical riches. Even the transition as a child from Buenos Aires to Arad, after losing her parents one after the next, did not dull Henig’s passion for song or damage her natural singing ability.
“I sing with the voice I was born with,” she says. Even though her Israeli guardian didn’t approve, Henig insisted on studying music and arrived at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance without a penny to her name, without any knowledge of theory and without any support. She won scholarships for excellence in singing year after year, which is what enabled her to complete her studies at the academy. Memories of her teacher in Argentina, Juliet Madioni, nourished her singing as she underwent training for opera.