FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13TH AT 7:30PM

AVI AVITAL & VIANO STRING QUARTET

ST. PAUL’S BY-THE-SEA EPISCOPAL CHURCH

2025 JURIED ART SHOW WINNER, ÅKE ARNERDAL

Viano String Quartet returns to BFAS with famed mandolin artist Avi Avital in a first-time collaboration. Winner of the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2019, Viano has never entered a major competition without capturing a top prize. Avital is the major driving force behind the reinvigoration of the mandolin repertory and the first mandolin soloist to be nominated for a classical Grammy.

THE ARTISTS

Avital: Avi Avital…was nothing short of electric.” (The New York Times)

Viano: “Hair-raising, with bolts of lightning flashing from many pages.” (The American Record Guide)

Program

Avi Avital, mandolin
Lucy Wang, violin
Hao Zhou, violin
Aiden Kane, viola
Tate Zawadiuk, cello

Avi Avital

The first mandolin soloist to be nominated for a classical Grammy, Avi Avital has been compared to Andrés 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-inResidence 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.

Viano Quartet

Praised for their “virtuosity, visceral expression, and rare unity of intention” (Boston Globe), the Viano Quartet has quickly soared to international acclaim as one of the most dynamic and in-demand string quartets of their generation. Winners of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2025, the ensemble has captivated audiences worldwide ever since they were awarded First Prize at the 13th Banff International String Quartet Competition, with appearances at renowned venues such as Lincoln Center in New York, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Hong Kong’s City Hall, and London’s Wigmore Hall. The Viano Quartet are Bowers Program Artists at The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 2024-2027.

Highlights of the Viano Quartet’s 2025–26 season include debut performances at London’s Southbank Centre, the Frick Collection in New York, Dublin’s National Concert Hall, Coast Live Music, Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City, Apex Concerts, the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the Fortas Series at the Kennedy Center, Premiere Performances HK, and a mainstage full recital debut at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The quartet also makes return appearances at Stanford Live, Forte Chamber Music, the Beaches Fine Arts Series, the Buffalo Chamber Music Society’s Slee Series (for the second half of their Beethoven cycle), Chamber Music Albuquerque, and the Sanibel Music Festival. The quartet looks forward to visiting residencies this season at Stanford University through the St. Lawrence Legacy Series, the University of Victoria, Music in the Morning in Vancouver, and the Auditorium Chamber Music Series at the University of Idaho. This season also features exciting collaborations with mandolinist Avi Avital, pianist Sir Stephen Hough, pianist Gilbert Kalish, clarinetist Anthony McGill, guitarist Miloš Karadaglić, and singer-songwriter Vienna Teng.

Equally committed to both beloved masterworks and contemporary repertoire, the Viano Quartet actively collaborates with today’s leading composers, including Sir Stephen Hough, Kevin Lau, Chris Rogerson, and Caroline Shaw. They are set to premiere a newly written string quartet by Indian American composer Reena Esmail in the summer of 2026.

The quartet’s recent discography highlights the ensemble’s range across both traditional and modern repertoire. Their first full-length album, Voyager, was newly released in summer 2025 with Apple Music/ Platoon Records. Inspired by humankind’s enduring spirit of exploration that connects music and people across vast boundaries, the album features Beethoven’s “Op. 130” alongside Alistair Coleman’s “Moonshot.” Their debut EP Portraits was released in 2023 as one of the first albums to be launched on the Curtis Studio label, featuring works by Schubert, Florence Price, Tchaikovsky, and Ginastera.

Passionate about sharing their love for chamber music with the next generation of musicians, the quartet has worked with some of the most talented young artists at the world’s leading universities and music institutions, including Northwestern University, Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute, the Colburn Academy, and Duke University. They have also collaborated with many of the world’s finest artists, including Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnatan, Fleur Barron, Mahan Esfahani, Marc-André Hamelin, James Ehnes, Bridget Kibbey, Paul Neubauer, David Shifrin, and Pinchas Zukerman.

The Viano Quartet was formed in Los Angeles at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in 2015. Each member of the quartet is grateful for the unwavering support from their mentors at the Curtis Institute and Colburn Conservatory, including members of the Dover, Guarneri, and Tokyo string quartets.

“Viano” is a portmanteau that symbolizes how the four individual instruments of a string quartet—each beginning with the letter “v”—work harmoniously as one, like a piano, creating a unified instrument called the “Viano.”

Opus 3 Artists
250 West 34th Street
WorkLife Office, Suite 313
New York, NY 10119
212.584.7500