Avi Avital: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Other than bluegrass virtuosos like Ricky Skaggs, players of the mandolin don t often get taken very seriously. But a young Israeli musician named Avi Avital is trying to change that. He s not a bluegrass star; instead, his mandolin sings with the sounds of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ernest Bloch and contemporary composers like Avner Dorman. Avital s recording of a mandolin concerto by Dorman gave the instrument a little boost in 2010, when Avital became the first mandolinist to be nominated for a Grammy in the Best Instrumental Soloist category. The concerto was an Avital commission: The mandolinist feels strongly about challenging today s composers to consider the mandolin as a virtuoso instrument, and use its great sonorities and the immense palette of colors and expressions it can You can hear a lot of those colorful sonorities in this Tiny Desk performance. Avital also adheres to the old necessity is the mother of invention axiom. Since mandolin compositions aren t thick on the ground, he arra