Concerto for Mandolin

The work was commissioned by the Chamber Kibbutz Orchestra for the brilliant mandolin player, Avi Avital. It contains several sections, played uninterruptedly, which share motivic, rhythmic, melodic and harmonic material. The closing section is a paraphrase, kind of a distance memory of the opening section. The different sections are based on free musical associations sparked in me by the names of the soloist Avi Avital, and the Palestinian medical doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish, whose humane personality affected me deeply after his daughters and niece were horrendously killed by Israeli army during the 2008 Gaza War. The mandolin, despite being a Western instrument, resembles in many ways the most central Arab plucked instrument – the Oud. This resemblance served well my intention to use both Western and Eastern elements in this work, and to express my deep and persistent belief in Jewish-Arab coexistence.