Acknowledged by The New York Times for his »exquisitely sensitive playing« and »stunning agility«, Grammy-nominated mandolinist Avi Avital is one of the world’s most exciting and adventurous musicians. He is deeply committed to building a fresh legacy for the mandolin through virtuosic performance in a range of genres and commissioning new works for mandolin. He has commissioned over 100 works by Anna Clyne, Jennifer Higdon, Avner Dorman, David Bruce and Giovanni Sollima.

Avi Avital is internationally regarded for his performances at venues including Carnegie Hall (Weill Hall), Lincoln Center, Berlin Philharmonie, KKL Luzern, Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing and the Wigmore Hall. He has appeared as soloist with the Berliner Symphoniker, Orchestre National de Montpellier, Potsdam Kammerakademie, Metropolis Ensemble NY, Israel Philharmonic and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. He has collaborated extensively with artists such as Giora Feidman, Mahan Esfahani, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Alice Sara Ott, Andreas Scholl, the Dover Quartet, the Danish String Quartet and Brooklyn Rider, and has also been featured at the Tanglewood, Luzern, Spoleto, Salzburg and Ravenna summer Festivals.

Avi Avital is the first mandolin player to receive a GRAMMY nomination in the category »Best Instrumental Soloist« (2010) for his recording of Avner Dorman’s Mandolin Concerto (Metropolis Ensemble/Andrew Cyr). He has won numerous competitions and awards including Germany’s ECHO Prize for his 2008 recording with the David Orlowsky Trio and the AVIV Competition (2007), the preeminent national competition for Israeli soloists.

Born in Be’er Sheva, southern Israel in 1978, he began learning the mandolin at the age of eight and soon joined the flourishing mandolin youth orchestra founded and directed by his charismatic teacher, Russian-born violinist Simcha Nathanson. He later graduated from the Jerusalem Music Academy and the Conservatorio Cesare Pollini in Padova, Italy where he studied the original mandolin repertoire with Ugo Orlandi.

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, his sixth album for the label »The Art of the Mandolin« has been received with high praise and top reviews in The Times, Independent, Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine as well as the international press. Previous recordings »Bach« (2019), »Avital meets Avital« (2017), »Vivaldi« (2015), an album of Avital’s own transcriptions of Bach concertos (2012) and »Between Worlds« (2014) also received numerous awards.