Avi Avital
Rebel / Adès / Rameau
The New York orchestra The Knights has brought a fresh breeze to the concert hall with its unconventional programmes and creative arrangements. Without tailcoats or a conductor, but with the highest standards of musicality and virtuosity, the ensemble has found a kindred spirit in Avi Avital. The Israeli musician, who has made Berlin his home, has rescued his instrument from its century-long shadowy existence and brought the mandolin into the limelight once more.
Even during its Baroque heyday, not much music was written for the mandolin, while Romantic composers found its gentle tone simply too quiet. Oddly enough, it was none other than Gustav Mahler who ushered in the instrument’s renaissance with his monumental Seventh Symphony. But we owe it to Avi Avital that the mandolin has achieved something close to cult status in the last few years.
Born in 1978 in the Israeli town of Beersheba, the son of Moroccan immigrants has brought the mandolin unprecedented popularity, partly by regularly commissioning new works for it, but also by making his own arrangements of repertoire classics, and by not being afraid to venture on to new territory such as jazz and world music.
Performers
Avi Avital mandolin
The Knights
director Eric Jacobsen
Programme
Jean-Féry Rebel
Le Chaos aus »Les éléments« / Suite pour orchestre
Thomas Adès
Three Studies from Couperin
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Ouvertüre zu Zoroastre
Johann Sebastian Bach
Konzert für Cembalo, Streicher und Basso continuo d-Moll BWV 1052 / Bearbeitung: Avi Avital
– Interval –
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93
Klezmer sowie Arrangements, Transkriptionen und Originalmusik aus dem Mittleren Osten und dem Balkan
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International Soloists