Avi Avital

Avi Avital, the Israeli virtuoso mandolinist, has built a reputation through his intense renditions of Baroque repertoire, contemporary scores, and folk traditions. As a committed champion of his instrument, he pursues a lifelong aim of broadening its catalog, refining its technical possibilities, and overturning assumptions about its boundaries. Born in Be'er Sheva, Israel, in 1978, he took up the mandolin at the age of eight and soon joined the local youth orchestra under Simcha Nathanson, a violinist by training who had acquired his mandolin skills independently. He later enrolled at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and continued his studies with Hugo Orlandi in Padua at the Cesare Pollini Conservatory.

Recognizing the scarcity of existing works for mandolin, he began writing his own compositions and arrangements in 2002, launching a series of commissions for concertos and chamber pieces that spotlighted the instrument. Two years afterward he initiated an artistic partnership with klezmer clarinetist Giora Feidman, who became an influential mentor. Avital captured the Doris and Mori Arkin Prize at the 2007 Aviv competition in Israel, an achievement that brought wider visibility and first appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, and additional prominent stages. His 2010 account of Avner Dorman’s Mandolin Concerto earned a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist; although the award eluded him, the recognition secured a contract with Deutsche Grammophon in 2012 and the release of his debut album Bach, featuring his transcriptions of Bach’s violin concertos for mandolin and orchestra.

His son Hillel arrived in 2013. The following year saw the appearance of Between Worlds, an album incorporating his own adaptations alongside pieces by Ora Bat Chaim, Sulkhan Tsintsadze, and Vittorio Monti. He issued his third Deutsche Grammophon recording, Vivaldi, in 2015 and, in 2017, explored jazz terrain with bassist Omer Avital on the album Avital Meets Avital. Returning to classical programming, he presented The North Wind Was a Woman – Chamber Works by David Bruce in 2019. In 2022 he held a residency at the Boulez Hall in Berlin, reuniting with the Between Worlds Ensemble for three concerts devoted to the regional idioms of the Iberian Peninsula, the Black Sea, and Italy. During this period he also gave first performances of concertos he had commissioned from Jennifer Higdon, Anna Clyne, and Giovanni Sollima while touring with Olga Pashchenko, Omer Klein, and other collaborators. His 2023 collection Concertos ranked among the year’s top-selling classical releases, and he remains vigorously engaged both in live performance and in the recording studio.