Jazz Articles about Avi Avital

About Avi Avital

Album Review

On his debut recording, Bach (2013, Deutsche Grammophon), mandolinist Avi Avital played a pristine, clinically punctilious JSB. It is therefore no surprise that Avital moves a little earlier in the Baroque Era to produce a very similar collection by Antonio Vivaldi. Avital is an Israeli born in 1978 who took part in a local mandolin youth orchestra. He has previously recorded a rich collection of Klezmer, Baroque and contemporary classical music. He now contuse his look back with the Red ...

Album Review

Avi Avital: Bach

Read "Bach" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 7, 2013

Johann Sebastian Bach never composed for the mandolin. And that never stopped any mandolin players from appropriating Bach's work, especially for lute. Punch Brothers' Chris Thile recently released his take on the first half of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (Nonesuch, 2013), and is merely the latest non-classical artist to take on the great German's canon. Berlin-based mandolinist Avi Avital tosses his hat into the ring with mandolin arrangements for violin, oboe and flute concerti. ...