Avri Levitan

The Israeli violist living in Berlin, Avri Levitan, is one of today's most outstanding soloists with wide international recognition.

He performs regularly in the most prestigious concert halls, such as Berliner Philharmonie, Vienna Konzerthaus, Tokyo Oji Hall, Casals Hall Tokyo, National Philharmonic Hall Warsaw, Seoul Kumho Art Hall, Stockholm Nybrokajen Hall.

Some of his concerts and music activities for the season 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 include concert tours to Argentina (incl. Buenos Aires Radio), China (Shanghai Conservatory of Music), Korea (Kumho Art Hall Seoul), Israel (Radio concerts, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv); soloist with Amadeus Chamber Orchestra (at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw), National Lithuanian Philharmonic, Kiev National Philharmonic, Nordic Symphony Orchestra (concerts Munich and Vienna, cond. Anu Tali), Chile National Philharmonic, Radom Chamber Orchestra, Orquestra do Norte (Lisbon, Porto), Sinfonia Baltica, Ryazan Philhamonic Russia, Rzeszow Philharmonic, Lodz Philharmonic, Katowice Philharmonic and many others chamber and symphony orchestras worldwide.

Together with his performing career, Avri Levitan has also established his name as a viola teacher. From October 2008, Mr. Levitan starts his engagement as professor and head of the viola cathedra at the CIEC Spain.
He is 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, Tallin, Vilnius Music Academies, Buenos Aires Conservatory of Music.

Mr. Levitan is a frequent guests at numerous festivals, to mention just a few: Ravinia Music Festival, Chicago, Schlezwig-Holstein, Rolands Eck (Germany), Hida-Takayama Music Festival (Japan), Bastad and Gotland Chamber Music Festivals (Sweden), Beethoven Festival (Poland).

Born in 1973 in Tel Aviv, Avri studied viola under Professor Haim Taub. He graduated from the Rubin Tel Aviv Academy and made his Master at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris, in the prestigious "Cycle de Perfectionnement" program. He won the first prize at the Rubin Academy competition and the 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.
Mr. Levitan won regularly scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.

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, Agnieszka Duczmal.
Avri Levitan has given concerts for different radio and TV stations as the Israeli National Radio and Television, the Sweden Radio and Television, ZDF and NDR in Germany, Polish National Radio and TV, and the Costa Rica National Radio. His live concert for Fuji Radio in Tokyo in 2004 was highly reviewed by “Strings” magazine.