An outreach concert in Netivot, the southern Israel town of 36,000 less than 10 miles from Gaza that was created only 60 years ago, and is dominated by two waves of immigration – one from Ethiopia and another from Russia. Also in the mix, reportedly, are Israeli Jews and bedouins..

This concert was held at the Tanenbaum Conservatory of Music, created to bring culture to the region but also to give local children the kind of musical training that would give them the possibility of further studies in Tel Aviv. But because the last, full-orchestra concert was on Tuesday in Jerusalem, all of the Philadelphia instruments were shipped back to the United States. Filling in were instruments taken out of Israel Philharmonic storage. Cellist Udi Bar-David joked that the instruments hadn't been played since Israel was established 70 years ago. It was an after-school audience, many of them elderly townspeople.

The region has a surprisingly large mandolin culture. Among them is the charismatic, 52-year-old Shmuel Elbaz, the conservatory's director, who joined the quartet for a Vivaldi mandolin concerto with minimal rehearsal and then an improvisation that was a triumph of transcending the instruments and a testament to on-the-fly inspiration - in what was easily one of the more sizzling performances of the tour.

свернуть