Sivan Magen, harp (New York, NY), treats the harp as an expressive, colorful and virtuosic instrument, moving it to center stage through the exploration of the standard repertoire, the commissioning of today’s composers and his new adaptations to the harp of some of the greatest music of the last three centuries.
The only Israeli to have ever won the International Harp Contest in Israel, Sivan is a winner of the Pro Musicis International Award and in 2012 was chosen by a committee headed by Dame Mitsuko Uchida as the winner of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. He appears as a soloist across the US, South America, Europe and Israel, in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Sydney Opera House, and the Vienna Konzerthaus, and with orchestras such as the Israel Philharmonic, the Strasbourg Philharmonic, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony, the Sydney Symphony, and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.
Sivan is a much sought-after chamber musician appearing with artists such as Nobuko Imai, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Gary Hoffman, Michel Letiec, Charles Neidich, Carol Wincenc, Emmanuel Pahud, tenor Nicholas Phan, soprano Susanna Phillips and members of the Guarneri and Juilliard Quartets, and at the Marlboro, Yellow Barn, Kuhmo, Giverny, and Jerusalem International Chamber Music festivals.
He is a founding member of trio Tre Voci along with Marina Piccinini and Kim Kashkashian, with whom he has toured extensively in Europe and the US. Sivan is also a founding member of the Israeli Chamber Project (ICP), a group that performs in both outreach venues and major concert halls in Israel and the US. The ICP is the winner of the 2011 Israeli Ministry of Culture Outstanding Ensemble Award.
Sivan leads an active teaching life, presenting master classes in major US conservatories and in Taiwan and Israel, the Paris Conservatory, the Utrecht Conservatory, London’s Guildhall School and Trinity College, the summer Academy in Nice, the Kuhmo Festival Academy in Finland, and the Jerusalem Music Academy’s International “Music in the Valley” seminar for strings. He is currently a faculty member at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music.
Born in Jerusalem, Sivan studied the piano with Benjamin Oren and Talma Cohen and the harp with Irena Kaganovsky-Kessler at the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance. After completing his military service as an "Outstanding Musician" in 2001, he continued his studies with Germaine Lorenzini in France and then joined Isabelle Moretti’s harp class at the Paris Conservatory from which he graduated with a “Premier Prix”. He received a Master of Music degree as a student of Nancy Allen at the Juilliard School.