Avi Avital & Les Violons du Roy

“Here is a musician who recognizes no boundaries except those of good taste, and who has the artistry to persuade listeners to follow him anywhere.” (Gramophone)

“Much as Andres Segovia brought the classical guitar into the concert hall,  the Israeli virtuoso Avi Avital is doing the same with the mandolin.” (Los Angeles Times)

“The words “superstar” and “mandolinist” still look odd next to each other. Yet in the classical world they are starting to be joined with some frequency…. Avi Avital was nothing short of electric.” (The New York Times)

The first mandolin soloist to be nominated for a classical Grammy, Avi Avital has been compared to Andres Segovia for his championship of his instrument and to Jascha Heifetz for his incredible virtuosity. Passionate and “explosively charismatic” (New York Times) in live performance, he is the driving force behind the reinvigoration of the mandolin: for more than two decades he has reshaped the history and the future of his instrument, playing it in the most prestigious halls all over the world. In addition to that, Avi Avital has expanded the mandolin repertoire not only with transcriptions of various pieces, but by commissioning over 100 works for the mandolin including concertos for mandolin and orchestra by Fazil Say, Jennifer Higdon, Anna Clyne, Avner Dorman and Giovanni Sollima.

Highlights of the 2025/26 season include performances with Il Giardino Armonico, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Geneva Camerata, the Ensemble Resonanz, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Fuse Ensemble, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, and a residency with the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He will be working with conductors such as Giovanni Antonini, Alondra de la Parra, Jeanette Sorrell, Anna Rakitina and Hugo Ticciati.
Avi Avital will give recitals and chamber performances with Omer Klein, Ksenija Sidorova and the Viano Quartet, and will return to the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Kissinger Sommer and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, among others.

Avi Avital’s other recent engagements include Chicago, Seattle, Toronto & Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, TonhalleOrchester Zürich, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Israel Philharmonic, and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra working with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Alan Gilbert, Robert Spano, Osmo Vänskä, Yutaka Sado, Nicholas McGegan, Omer Meir Wellber, Giovanni Antonini, Jonathan Cohen and Ton Koopman.

In 2023, Avi Avital launched his new venture, the ensemble “Between Worlds”, with a three-part residency at Boulez Saal in Berlin and concerts, that led the musicians to in Bucharest, Frankfurt, Warsaw, Hamburg, Gstaad, Ludwigshafen and Antwerp, as well as festivals like BBC Proms, Schleswig-Holstein and Enescu. The ensemble was formed to explore different genres, cultures and musical worlds focusing on different geographical regions and in its first year featured traditional, classical and folk music from the Iberian Peninsula, the Black Sea and South Italy.

Avi Avital’s versatility has led to features as “Portrait Artist” at Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, BOZAR Brussels, Dortmund Konzerthaus and as Artist-in-Residence at the Bodensee Festival and La Jolla Music Society California. He is a regular presence at major festivals such as Aspen, Salzburg, Hollywood Bowl, Tanglewood, Ravenna, MISA Shanghai, Cheltenham, Verbier, Lucerne, Bad Kissingen, Rheingau Musik Festival, Gstaad and Tsinandali.

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, Avi Avital released his first album with his ensemble “Between Worlds” in 2025: “Song of the Birds” combines works by Manuel de Falla, Otar Taktakishvili and Fazil Say with traditional folk pieces in arrangements by David Bruce and others and was acclaimed by audiences and critics alike. “Concertos” (2023), which he recorded with Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini, features mandolin concertos by Vivaldi, Hummel, Bach, Barbella and Paisiello. This album won an Opus Klassik award in 2024 for “Concerto Recording of the Year”. His album “The Art of the Mandolin” (2020) 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.

Born in Be’er Sheva in southern Israel, Avital 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 studied at the Jerusalem Music Academy and the Conservatorio Cesare Pollini in Padua with Ugo Orlandi. He plays on a mandolin made by Israeli luthier Arik Kerman.

Les Violons du Roy takes its name from the celebrated court orchestra of the French kings. It was founded in 1984 by Bernard Labadie to explore the repertoire of music for chamber orchestra in performances matched as closely as possible to the period of each work’s composition. Its minimum fifteen-member complement plays modern instruments, albeit with period bows for Baroque and Classical music, and its interpretations are deeply informed by the latest research on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice. The repertoire of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries receives similar attention and figures regularly on the orchestra’s programs.

Les Violons du Roy has been a focal point of Québec City’s musical life since it was founded in 1984, and in 1997 it reached out to enrich the cultural landscape of Montréal as well. In 2007, the orchestra moved into its permanent home base in Québec City’s Palais Montcalm while continuing to build on the worldwide reputation it has acquired in countless concerts and recordings carried by medici.tv, Radio-Canada, CBC, and NPR along with regular appearances on the festival circuit. Les Violons du Roy has performed dozens of times throughout Canada as well as in Germany, the U.K., Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, Colombia, Ecuador, South Korea, Spain, the United States, France, Israel, Morocco, Mexico, Norway, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Switzerland, in collaboration with such world-renowned soloists as Magdalena Kožená, David Daniels, Vivica Genaux, Alexandre Tharaud, Ian Bostridge, Emmanuel Pahud, Stephanie Blythe, Marc-André Hamelin, Philippe Jaroussky, Anthony Marwood, Isabelle Faust, Julia Lezhneva, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Avi Avital, Inon Barnatan, and Miloš. The orchestra has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie and iconic venues in London, Paris, and Brussels, with two performances on invitation at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Since Les Violons du Roy’s first trip to Washington, D.C., in 1995, its U.S. travels have been enriched with numerous and regular stops in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Its eleven appearances at Carnegie Hall include five with La Chapelle de Québec featuring the Messiah, the Christmas Oratorio, and the St. John Passion under Bernard Labadie. Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles has hosted the orchestra three times, once with La Chapelle de Québec in the Messiah, again under Bernard Labadie. Les Violons du Roy is represented by Opus 3 Artists and Askonas Holt.

The 40 recordings released thus far by Les Violons du Roy have been met with widespread critical acclaim. The twelve released on the Dorian label include Mozart’s Requiem with La Chapelle de Québec (Juno Award 2002) and of Handel’s Apollo e Dafne with soprano Karina Gauvin (Juno Award 2000). Since 2004, 14 recordings have appeared through a partnership between Les Violons du Roy and Quebec’s ATMA label, including Water Music (Félix Award 2008), and Piazzolla (Juno Award 2006). Further recordings on Erato, Naïve, Hyperion, Analekta, and Decca Gold include Vivica Genaux, Truls Mørk, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Alexandre Tharaud, Marc-André Hamelin, Valérie Milot, Anthony Roth Costanzo (Grammy Award 2019 nomination) and Charles Richard-Hamelin (Juno Award 2020 nomination).