One of the things Rob Rinder loves most about Israel, he says, is its “cultural democracy”, especially in music.

“You go to a drum and bass gig or a techno party in Tel Aviv and you see the same people there that you did at a classical music concert the other evening,” he tells the JC.

“It reminds me of how you could once be in a taxi in Russia, and have a conversation with the cabbie about Rachmaninoff’s 3rd piano concerto in D minor.”

The Rachmaninoff piece is an all-time favourite, he says, but next Sunday (22nd Jan) the JC columnist and much-loved television personality will discuss other works from the classical music canon.

ORION ORHESTRA HI RES KF0KWA

Tuning up: the Orion Orchestra

And not from the back seat of a taxi. Rinder is presenting Never Forget, a Holocaust memorial concert, at the Royal Academy of Music. British oboist and conductor Nicholas Daniel’s repertoire will performed by the Orion Orchestra, of which Rinder is president.

“Holocaust Memorial Day takes place later that week, of course, and while I am mindful of Jewish philosopher Theodore Adorno’s famous eight words that ‘to write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric’, that art lost its redemptive and curative powers after the Shoah, I think that classical music can invite us to reflect and remember,” he says.

“In fact, I would say that this is what we mean when we talk about the limitless power of classical music. It can help us cope. I didn’t select the pieces for the concert; conductor Nick Daniel put together a repertoire that feels fitting for a Holocaust memorial event.

"The orchestra will be playing a rich variety of works by Mendelssohn, Mozart, Prokofiev and Pärt that don’t speak to those events in a literal way, but which do speak to loss, to pain and to complexity.”

Over the years, Rinder has presented several programmes about the Holocaust — “it’s a Jewish injunction to bear witness” — but he only became president of the fêted Orion Orchestra last March.

The orchestra, which has launched the careers of many young musicians, practises the cultural democracy he holds so dear, setting aside one in five tickets for people who wouldn’t otherwise attend.

Rinder GettyImages-1346031337

Rob Rinder (Getty Images)

He says: “I come from a background where classical music was sort of at arm’s length, and that’s also how things are for most people in this country.

“I listen to Bach and also to female rap artists, and I want everyone to feel they can do the same.

"One reason people think classical music isn’t for them is because the spaces where it is performed were mostly designed to be kept from the masses. Ugh. Inviting people to stay in their lane is both profoundly, culturally snobbish and stupid.”

To book tickets, visit here.