The Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva was founded in 1973. From the beginning, it had two aims: to bring music regularly to the capital of the Negev and the surrounding communities, and to provide employment to musicians who were new immigrants and had come to live in Beer Sheva.

Over the past five decades, the orchestra has steadily and faithfully served the music-loving community of Beer Sheva and the Negev. In addition to its performances on all the concert stages in Israel, the orchestra has gone beyond its environs and become an artistic unit with a reputation in Israel and abroad.

The orchestra offers a wide variety of concert series in Beer Sheva and throughout the country. These include concert series for preschool, elementary, and high school students, and for students at Ben-Gurion University and the colleges of the Negev.

The orchestra’s founder is Nissim Alsheikh. Maestro Avi Ostrovski served as its chief conductor and first musical director, and was succeeded by the late Maestro Mendi Rodan, a winner of the Israel Prize whom the orchestra commemorates as its honorary conductor. Maestro Rani Calderon has been chief conductor and musical director since the 2023/24 concert season. The orchestra’s CEO is Claudia Czobel.  

Over the years, hundreds of musicians of the highest caliber have performed with the Sinfonietta, including: Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Jean Pierre Rampal, Shlomo Mintz, Sheila Armstrong, Sophie Solomon, Yuri Bashmet, Asher Fish, Guy Braunstein, Marielle Nordmann, and others.

The Sinfonietta has released records and CDs as well as many recordings for radio, and has gone on numerous concert tours in Israel and abroad: at the Caesarea Amphitheater and the Beit Shean Amphitheater, at Carnegie Hall (New York), Richardson Hall (Toronto), the Royal Festival Hall (London), the Hercules Hall (Munich), the Teatre Gaudi (Barcelona), and others. In 2012, under the musical direction of Maestro Doron Solomon, the orchestra went on two concert tours in China (during which it performed at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing and in other Chinese provinces), and in the summer of 2013 the orchestra performed at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow.  

In September 2015, under the baton and musical direction of Maestro Justus Frantz, the Sinfonietta went on a well-publicized concert tour of Germany to mark 50 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Germany and Israel, in partnership with the Philharmonic of the Nations Orchestra of Hamburg. The Sinfonietta became the first orchestra in Israeli history to perform for the German legislature in Berlin at the Reichstag Building. 

One of the Sinfonietta’s main objectives is the musical education of young people. It offers special concert series from preschool through the elementary and high school levels, and for students at Ben-Gurion University and the academic colleges of the Negev. Each year the Sinfonietta’s concert hall is visited by tens of thousands of children, teenagers, and students who encounter the beauty of classical music.

The orchestra makes sure to promote original works by Israeli artists. For doing so, in 1995 it won an award from the Council for Culture and Art (for an outstanding orchestral performance of Israeli music), and in 1998, the Spinning Top-Hat Prize of Art for the People (for making the music available to the outlying communities).

Today, the Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva is considered exemplary for the diversity and quality of its musicians. Native Israelis join with new and veteran immigrants to form a professional and highly polished orchestra. Thanks to its professionalism and technical excellence, alongside the creative elan of its members, the orchestra offers its listeners an enjoyable musical experience.