Biography

The Israeli mandolin player Avi Avital (1978 - ) graduated from the Jerusalem Music Academy and specialized at the Padua Conservatory.

He has played with major orchestras, such as the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rostov State Theatre Soloists, I Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano, the Ingolstadt Kammerorchester and the New York Metropolis Ensemble, and under the baton of such illustrious conductors as Mastislav Rostropovitch, Asher Fisch and Philippe Entremont.

In 2007, Avi Avital won the first prize at Israel's prestigious competition for soloists, the “Aviv competition - Doris and Mori Arkin Award”, thus becoming the first mandolin player in the history of the competition to achieve this recognition. He has received in the following year a special award from the Israeli Minister of Culture and an ECHO Prize for his recording with David Orlowsky Trio for Sony BMG.

His intense artistic activity includes numerous international appearances, with performances in concerts throughout Europe, the USA and South-East Asia.

He has been invited to give lectures and Master Classes at the Conservatorio Verdi di Milano, Stanford University (California), the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel and at New York’s Julliard School of Music.

His innate curiosity of all aspects of music - from experimental to ancient music, passing through world music - has made him one of the most multi-faceted mandolin-players of our time.

"...exquisitely sensitive playing."
Allan Kozinn / The New York Times

“The mandolin has a marvelous sound when it is played at world class level, and Avi Avital demonstrates this phenomenon superbly in his very first performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto in D major. Avital has the gift of transforming the seemingly impossible into reality. His magical fingers arrange, shape, and twist the melodious phrases so evocatively that they take on a vocal quality, sounding even more vibrant than the music many violinists or cellists coax from their instruments.”
Jesko Schulze-Reimpell / Donaukurier

“Avital’s playing, which can be defined as “everything you never dreamt a mandolin could do,” was truly breathtaking in virtuosity and dedication. He chose a 2002 piece by the Japanese composer Kuwahara to display the unbounded variety of his mandolin – a unique instrument, as echoing as a violin, which in his hands altered the colors of sounds like a kaleidoscope, dancing to the composer’s inventory of sound, hypnotizing and amusing.”
Noam Ben Ze’ev, Haaretz Daily