“Founded by Hitler refugees in the 1930s and patronised by the café-dwellers of Tel Aviv, the orchestra has seen its audience grow old and its output stagnate. An influx of Russian musicians and concertgoers in the 1990s gave a brief blip of renewal but the IPO was set on a road to irrelevance. Young Israelis go to clubs, not concerts. Part of the problem has been the IPO’s resistance to change.”