Mandolin player Avi Avital is undertaking his fourth Australian tour this month but, he notes, "It will be the first time I've been in your town."

So why hasn't he been to Canberra before on his travels?

"Good question! The last time I spent time in Australia I was with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and it was not part of the tour - we toured to Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane. I'm happy Musica Viva was able to set up a broader tour," he says.

It doesn't sound like even he knows, but he's coming now, so fans of the Israeli musician, who;s had more than 90 contemporary compositions - including 15 concertos - written for him, can be glad of the chance to hear him live. As well as Canberra, he'll be playing in Sydney. Brisbane, Newcastle, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne.

Avital will be touring with the Giocoso String Quartet - whose members are Romanian, Dutch and German - in a program that will see them perform together as well as give each a separate slot. The quartet will play Robert Schumann's String Quartet no 1 in A minor, op 41 no 1.

Since classical composers wrote very little solo or concerto repertoire for his instrument, Avital mostly plays arrangements or commissions new works, he says, and this concert features examples of both.

He'll be playing an arrangement of the "mammoth" Chaconne from the Second Violin Partita by J.S. Bach and a couple of newer works from what he refers to as "the critical mass of new pieces for mandolin" - which he has played a significant role in helping to create.

One is Cymbeline, written five years ago by British composer David Bruce that Avital will perform with the quartet. It is a tribute to the sun god of Celtic mythology, playing musically with the contrasts of sunrise and sunset.

The other, Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin's Orfeo, was commissioned for Musica Viva by Kim Williams for this tour and was also inspired by mythology, in this case the Greek myth of Orpheus.

"It's extraordinary music."

Born in 1978, Avital began learning the mandolin at the age of eight.

"It was quite a coincidence - when I was little one of my neighbours played the mandolin and growing up with it, I liked it."

He enjoyed being able to pluck the strings and make sounds and soon became serious about the instrument, joining a mandolin youth orchestra founded and directed by his teacher, Russian-born violinist Simcha Nathanson. Later, he graduated from the Jerusalem Music Academy and the Conservatorio Cesare Pollini in Padua, Italy, where he studied original mandolin repertoire with Ugo Orlandi. In 2007, he became the first mandolinist to win Israels Aviv Competition, which has bene running since 1999 and assists young Israeli musicians who are in the early stages of their careers.

Avital has performed around the world and has made several recordings including four for Deutsche Grammophon, where he is currently under contract. He performs and records music in a range of styles and genres, from classical to world to jazz and he says the "great thing about touring is the energy that's evident in the hall.... 90 per cent of people in the audience have never heard the mandolin live before."

For him, he says, it's "extraordinary" to know that many people are hearing something new to them and he's bringing it to them through his playing.

"I feel very lucky," he says.