On Sunday, Feb. 22, Grammy-nominated mandolinist Avi Avital and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performed a concert at BroadStage as the culmination of a Southern California tour with music by Vivaldi, Bach, Bartók and the U.S. premiere of “Concerto for Mandolin” by Italian contemporary composer Giovanni Sollima. They closed with two encores, a movement from Vivaldi’s “Summer” and Avital’s solo version of traditional Bulgarian folk song “Bučimiš.”

“I think that there should be more young people here, but there are not,” said audience member David Kagan, 46, who attended with Dylan Wordes, 37. “There’s so much intensity in these pieces. It’s modern in a lot of ways.”

“There’s a creative energy that’s unbridled in what happens in this type of music,” said Wordes during intermission.

Wordes and Kagan are both music lovers, especially of metal. They were drawn to the BroadStage concert by targeted Instagram advertisements and seeing Avital’s charisma.

“We were listening to Slayer in the car,” Wordes said, “and it’s the same amount of intensity, it’s just different...The same kind of passion is in this music.”

Kagan loved the energy at the end of the concert. “Explosive,” he said.

“It’s always been my dream to travel around the world playing concerts...I love it and I feel very privileged to do it,” Avital said of his performing career.

“When I play Bach, the encore would always be a crazy folk tune,” he said. “When I play with a jazz pianist or when I play with my Balkan music trio, the encore would always be Bach, you know. So I like this contrast.”

Even after years of being a concert soloist, Avital said many of his audiences hear the mandolin in classical music for the first time when he walks on stage.