Shuffle Concert brings musical innovations to the stage

Israeli pianist Eliran Avni has created a concert experience for the digital age, in the form of an iPod-style ‘shuffle.’ His Shuffle Concert, which comes to Long Island for its premiere performance, as part of the Madison Theatre’s inaugural season, on Saturday, Dec. 10, is a unique concept in which the audience determines the programming from a music “menu.”
The result is an interactive program that changes the dynamics of a traditional musical performance. The concert is presented by a classically trained ensemble of six musicians who are led by Avni, their artistic director and creative force behind Shuffle.
As Avni explained, “Shuffle changes the rules of performance as you know it.” When audience members arrive at his Shuffle concert, instead of a program, they are given an individually numbered menu filled with more than 40 musical masterpieces ranging from Baroque, Classical and Romantic to Pop, Jazz and Broadway. If your number is randomly chosen, you have the chance to select what style and what piece will be performed. Every concert then becomes a completely new experience – for the musicians and the audience.
The idea for Shuffle came about three years ago in San Diego while Avni was in the gym with his MP3 player during a workout. He was listening to Chrisse Hynde and the Pretenders when all of a sudden the music jumped to Prokoviev’s 5th Symphony. “I was so shocked I had to stop on the treadmill. It was like, huh, how did I get from Chrissie Hynde to Prokofiev? I began to think it would be interesting to have a concert that would revolve around this idea of crazy juxtapositions of styles.”
And at that moment, the Shuffle concert was born. Avni discovered that his friends and colleagues shared his enthusiasm and he recruited his original ensemble of ‘shufflers’ – friends and musicians he was familiar with. That group included sisters clarinetist Moran Katz and cellist Linor Katz, Juillard-trained Lauren Basney, oboist Roni Gal-Ed, along with soprano Amy Justman, whose background includes musical theater, opera and jazz.