Avi Avital’s Song of the Birds: A Dialogue Between Folk and Classical Music

The star mandolinist and his Between Worlds ensemble explore
the folk traditions of Italy, the Iberian peninsula and the Black Sea region

 With guest artists Marina Heredia, Alessia Tondo and acclaimed Georgian choir
Ensemble Rustavi, the project includes works by Bartók, Falla and Fazil Say,
as well as folk songs and dances

The first of 3 digital EPs, ITALY, comes out on 30 May 2025 – listen here –
with a 20-track album, Song of the Birds, set for release on 8 August

“From the moment I conceived this project, I felt it as a calling.
I feel like my whole musical life has been leading up to this”
Avi Avital

In a new series of recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, virtuoso mandolinist Avi Avital paints captivating musical portraits of three distinct geographical regions. Together with the nine versatile musicians of his Between Worlds ensemble, Avital has already delighted audiences around Europe with genre-defying programmes that celebrate folk traditions and their influence on classical composers past and present. Now they are set to release three digital EPs – ITALY, IBERIA and BLACK SEA – and an album, Song of the Birds, which features a colourful sequence of music from all three regions. Guest artists Marina Heredia, Alessia Tondo and the Georgian choir Ensemble Rustavi join the musicians in a rich selection of vocal and instrumental arrangements (most of which were created by David Bruce or Jonathan Keren). These are woven together by the magical sound of Avital’s mandolin, the heart of the ensemble, to form a vibrant tapestry of musical traditions.

ITALY comes out on 30 May 2025, with IBERIA following on 27 June and BLACK SEA on 11 July.  Song of the Birds will be released digitally and on CD on 8 August. Nine of the album’s 20 tracks do not appear on any of the EPs. Filmed versions of the Between Worlds concerts at Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal will be made available to stream on STAGE+, beginning with the premiere of the IBERIA concert on 5 July, and continuing with VoD releases of the BLACK SEA concert on 18 July and the ITALY concert on 15 August.

Italy is close to Avi Avital’s heart – not just as the birthplace of the mandolin, but as the country he called home for eight years, during which time he discovered the huge variety of musical traditions still flourishing throughout the peninsula. ITALY focuses on the south of the country, with vocalist Alessia Tondo, a leading exponent of that region’s folk music, joining the ensemble in songs such as Tarantella di Sannicandro. Song of the Birds also acknowledges the historical influence of Greece on Italy with the inclusion of Raiko, a traditional Macedonian dance arranged for the ensemble by violinist-composer Antonis Sousamoglou.

Avital’s journey continues with an exploration of the varied musical history of the Iberian Peninsula. The IBERIA EP features two works by Andalusian composer Falla, both rooted in the folk music of his native region: Andaluza from 4 Piezas españolas and an excerpt from El amor brujo, with vocals from legendary flamenco singer Marina Heredia. She also sings a contemporary arrangement of an Andalusian folk song harmonised by poet and musician Federico García Lorca. The album expands this repertoire with a selection of Ladino songs (Ladino being the language of the Sephardi Jews who established new communities outside the Iberian peninsula after being expelled from Spain in 1492). Heredia sings La Petenera, while the remaining arrangements are purely instrumental.

Bordered by modern-day Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, the Black Sea has long represented a cultural crossroads. The third of Avital’s EPs, BLACK SEA, includes two Bulgarian-inspired extracts from Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, and the intimately meditative Black Earth, by contemporary Turkish composer Fazil Say. The world-renowned Georgian male-voice choir Ensemble Rustavi perform two folk songs in the endangered Mingrelian language of western Georgia (two more appear on the album). These are adapted from the suite created from traditional material by 20th-century Georgian composer Otar Taktakishvili.

Song of the Birds – the final track on the album as well as on IBERIA – unifies this entire musical journey and brings it to a poetic close. This Catalan folk song, made famous by Pablo Casals’ solo cello version, has come to embody a universal desire for peace and hope. Its gentle melody and timeless spirit echo the heart of the ensemble’s work. As Avi Avital puts it: “Like the birds, we too carry the songs and stories of our collective memory into the world. This is our song. And our song is our message.”

Avi Avital – forthcoming tour dates

27 May – Yellow Lounge Chemnitz (including repertoire from the ITALY EP)

Between World concerts

31 Jul – Schleswig-Holstein Festival (Elmshorn – Black Sea) · 2 Aug – Schleswig-Holstein Festival (Kiel – Iberia)
4 Aug – Schleswig-Holstein Festival (Wotersen – Italy) · 5 Aug – Menuhin Festival (Gstaad – Italy)
8 Aug – Viva Musica! Festival (Bratislava – Italy) · 9 Sep – BBC Proms (London – Black Sea)
12 Sep – Enescu Festival (Bucharest – Italy) · 14 Sep – Bydgoszcz Music Festival (Bydgoszcz – Italy)
10 & 11 Oct – Alte Oper Nights (Frankfurt – Italy)