Nigunim

[Nigunim] is a wildly demanding piece, an ambitious multicultural grab bag. The composer infuses his own made-up Jewish tunes, or nigunim, into a wide variety of cultural alternatives: traditional Arabic music, Georgian folk, Macedonian dances, and tunes from a Libyan synagogue.

— Susan Miron , The Arts Fuse (2019)

When asked by the violinist Gil Shaham and his sister, the pianist Orli Shaham, to write a work for their concert of Jewish music at the 92nd Street Y, the composer Avner Dorman decided not to create a piece with traditional Jewish melodies.

Instead, Mr. Dorman — an Israeli composer whose influences run the gamut from Bach and Bartok to the jazz guitarist John McLaughlin — explored Jewish traditions from around the world, including Central Asian wedding songs and North African cantillations. He meshed those idioms with other traditions like Macedonian dances and Georgian folk rhythms to create the electric Niggunim for piano and violin.

The work had its premiere on Saturday night at the 92nd Street Y, given a dynamic performance by the Shaham siblings. Niggun is a Hebrew word meaning soulful melody; the music often has repetitive and improvisatory elements. Mr. Dorman’s piece opened with a haunting, slightly dissonant Adagio, whose eerie melody was etched out by Mr. Shaham in a high register. In the third-movement Adagio the piano took over, slowly teasing out a similarly haunting tune in the upper register. Mr. Shaham plunged into the virtuosic thickets of the Scherzo with aplomb, revealing its improvisatory melodies with flair. The concluding Presto unfolded in a kaleidoscopic blaze, a frenzy of jazzy rhythms and explosive energy.

— Vivien Schweitzer , New York Times (2011)