Avigail Bushakevitz
Avigail Bushakevitz is a Berlin-based South African violinist. Born in Israel, she grew up in the Western Cape, South Africa. In the seven years following the end of high school, she lived, studied, and performed in Cape Town, New York, Tel Aviv, and Berlin — the latter becoming her new home.
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In South Africa, she was the first prize winner of the UNISA National Strings Competition and the SAMRO Foundation's Overseas Scholarships Competition. She was also named “Young Artist of the Year for Music” in 2016 for her exceptional contributions to the field. In Israel, she was awarded first prize in the national Israeli UNO competition in Jerusalem.
After studying with Jack de Wet in Cape Town, she moved to New York and graduated from the Juilliard School of Music, where she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg. While at Juilliard, she was employed as a teaching assistant in ear training — a position she held for three years. Following Juilliard, Avigail studied with Hagai Shaham as an Artist Diploma student at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv. In Berlin, she studied under Ulf Wallin at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler.”
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As a soloist, Avigail has performed concerti by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Mendelssohn, Khachaturian, Prokofiev, Saint-Saëns, Mozart, Beethoven, and Bruch with orchestras in South Africa, Israel, and Germany. Her love of Baroque music and period instruments has led to performances of concerti by Bach and Locatelli with ensembles such as the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra.
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A passionate chamber musician, she is a member of several Berlin-based ensembles, performing in both major concert halls and intimate venues across Germany. Beyond South Africa and Europe, Avigail has toured the United States, the Middle East, Japan, and Korea as a chamber musician. She performed works by George Enescu at the International Enescu Festival in Bucharest.
In duo with her pianist brother, Ammiel, they won first prize at the Paper de Música International Chamber Competition in Catalonia — a prize that included a year of recitals across Spain. The siblings also recorded a CD of Mozart’s Violin and Piano Sonatas and were artists in residence at the 2024 Franschhoek Chamber Music Festival.
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Avigail is a member of the Franz Trio, a string trio based in Berlin, alongside violist Ernst-Martin Schmidt and cellist Constance Ricard.
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As an orchestral musician, Avigail has played as concertmaster at the Royal Albert Hall during the BBC Proms in London under Sir Mark Elder, and in Israel under Zubin Mehta. As a member of the Juilliard Orchestra, she performed multiple times at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. She has played under many of the great conductors of our time, including Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Iván Fischer, Herbert Blomstedt, Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Christoph Eschenbach. As a member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, she toured Spain, Abu Dhabi and Turkey.
Avigail currently plays with the first violins in the Konzerthaus Orchestra in Berlin, based at the historic Konzerthaus on Gendarmenmarkt. She is married to her chamber music partner, violist Ernst-Martin Schmidt, and they live in Berlin with their four young children.
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