The 2009 BBC Music Magazine Awards nominee, Avri Levitan, is one of today's most outstanding soloists with wide international recognition.
He performs regularly in some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Konzerthaus, Tokyo Oji Hall, Casals Hall Tokyo, National Philharmonic Hall Warsaw, Seoul Kumho Art Hall and Stockholm Nybrokajen Hall.
Some of his concerts and musical activities for the season 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 will include tours to Argentina (including Buenos Aires Radio), China (Shanghai Conservatory of Music), Korea (Kumho Art Hall Seoul), Israel (Radio concerts, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv). Furthermore, he will appear as a soloist in collaboration with the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, the National Lithuanian Philharmonic, the Kiev National Philharmonic, European tour with the Nordic Symphony Orchestra, dir. Anu Tali (Tallin Philharmonic, Vienna Konzerthaus), the Chilean National Philharmonic, the Radom Chamber Orchestra (Poland), the Orquestra do Norte, the Ryazan Philharmonic Russia, the Rzeszow, Lodz and Katowice Philharmonic and many other chamber and symphony orchestras worldwide.
Alongside his performing career, Avri Levitan has also established himself as a gifted viola teacher. In October 2008, he began his engagement as professor and head of the Cátedra de Viola at the CIEC Spain.
He is often invited to give master classes by the world's most famous music academies, among them Vienna Music Conservatory (together with Maestro Penderecki), Gedai University Tokyo, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Krakow Music Academy, Tel Aviv Music Academy, Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius Music Academies as well as Buenos Aires Conservatory of Music.
Avri Levitan is a frequent guest at numerous festivals such as Ravinia Music Festival (Chicago, USA), Schleswig-Holstein, Rolands Eck (Germany), Hida-Takayama Music Festival (Japan), Båstad and Gotland Chamber Music Festivals (Sweden), Beethoven Festival (Poland).
Born in 1973 in Tel Aviv, Avri Levitan studied viola under Professor Haim Taub. He graduated from the Rubin Tel Aviv Academy and achieved his Master degree at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris, in the prestigious "Cycle de Perfectionnement" program. He won first prize at the Rubin Academy competition and first prize at the chamber music competition (viola and piano) at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris. During his studies, Avri Levitan was mentored by Pinchas Zukerman, Michael Tree (Guarneri Quartet) and Ivry Gitlis. Avri Levitan has regularly won scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Today lives in Berlin.
He has performed with some of the world's most renowned musicians, among them Claude Frank, Pnina Salzman, Roland Pontinen, Staffan Scheja, Bengt Forsberg, Wolfram Rieger, Peter Jablonski, Pavel Glilov, Takashi Shimizu, Guy Braunstein, Ulf Wallin, Arve Tellefsen, Jan Stanienda, Bernard Greenhouse, Gary Hoffman, Alexander Rudin, Torleif Thedeen, Karl-Heinz Steffens, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Nikolai Dyadura, Noam Sharif and Agnieszka Duczmal.
Avri Levitan has given concerts for numerous radio and television stations such as the ZDF and NDR in Germany, and national TV and radio in Israel, Sweden, Poland, and Costa Rica. His live concert for Fuji Radio in Tokyo in 2004 received an excellent review in "Strings" magazine.