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Khatia Buniatishvili
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Biography

Born on 21 June 1987 in Tbilisi, Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and her elder sister Gvantsa were introduced to the piano at an early age by their mother, an enthusiastic music lover. Playing four handed remains one of the sisters’ favourite activities. Khatia’s extraordinary talent was recognized when she was very young. Aged six, she gave her début performance as soloist with an orchestra, and was subsequently invited to give guest performances in Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Russia, Israel and the USA. Khatia prefers not to be regarded as a child prodigy: virtuosity for its own sake does not appeal to her. Above all, she embraces pianists from earlier generations such as Rachmaninoff, Richter and Gould. She admires her “favourite pianist”, Martha Argerich, for her uniqueness and, as a consequence, does not view Argerich as someone she should try to emulate. And since she regards herself as “wholly a person of the 20th century”, Khatia does not identify so much with pianists of today. Khatia’s warm, sometimes sorrowful playing may reflect a close proximity to Georgian folk-music, which, she attests, has greatly influenced her musicality. Critics emphasize that her playing has an aura of elegant solitude and even melancholy, which she does not feel to be a negative attribute. “The piano is the blackest instrument,” she says, a “symbol of musical solitude”, which even a pianist must become accustomed to. “I have to be psychologically strong and forget the hall if I want to share it with the audience.”

During her studies at Tbilisi’s State Conservatoire, Khatia won a special prize at the Horowitz International Competition for Young Pianists in Kiev in 2003 as well as first prize at the Foundation to Assist Young Georgian Musicians competition set up by Elisabeth Leonskaya. At the 2003 Piano Competition in Tbilisi, she became acquainted with Oleg Maisenberg, who persuaded her to transfer to Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts. Winner of the Bronze Medal at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition in 2008, she was also distinguished as the Best Performer of a Chopin piece and as Audience Favourite. Khatia Buniatishvili has given critically acclaimed solo recitals and chamber music concerts at such renowned venues as London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Musikverein in Vienna. In 2008 she made her US concert début at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall), performing Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto. In 2011 Khatia Buniatishvili made her recording debut with a Liszt recital on Sony Classical, following now with her first recording accompanied with orchestra for a Chopin album. Khatia Buniatishvili has been invited to play with, among other orchestras, the Orchestre de Paris under Paavo Järvi, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France under Daniele Gatti and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. She can also often be heard in performances of chamber music: in a trio with Gidon Kremer, with Renaud Capuçon or also with her sister Gvantsa.

In 2010 Khatia received the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and was included in the BBC series on New Generation Artists. The Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus nominated her as Rising Star for the 2011–12 season. A great acclamation in 2012 was the selection of Khatia Buniatishvili as Best Newcomer of the Year in the Echo Klassik awards. In 2014 Khatia performed recitals at the Musikverein Vienna, Salle-Pleyel in Paris, the Carnegie Hall in New York and at the iTunes Festival in London. Her highlights of 2015 include concerts with the Russian National Orchestra at the Philharmonie in Munich, a performance at the “Festival de Música” in Madrid and a German tour with Paavo Järvi and the Orchestre de Paris. In 2016 she won the prestigious ECHO Klassik award for her album Kaleidoscope. In 2017 she released her latest album with the Piano Concerto Nos. 2 & 3 by the late-romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. Khatia Buniatishvili speaks five languages.

Current album

Schubert

Artists Khatia Buniatishvili

Release Date: 03/15/2019

Having blazed her way into public consciousness with her fearlessness on stage as well as on record, Georgian-born pianist Khatia Buniatishvili has become known for her distinctive artistic approach and bold interpretive flair, which combine to make her playing and performances both unmistakable and unmissable. 

Celebrated by media around the world, she has been described by The Observer as “one of today’s most exciting and technically gifted young pianists”, while Madame Figaro has called her “the popstar of the classical music world”, adding that “with Khatia Buniatishvili, only the repertoire is classical. As for the rest, there’s no limit.”  

This brilliant young musician now turns her attention to Franz Schubert (1797–1828) in her eagerly anticipated first recording of the composer’s works, including his great last Piano Sonata D 960, the four popular Impromptus D 899, and Liszt’s arrangement of “Ständchen” from Schwanengesang. 

The Schubert album follows on from Buniatishvili’s acclaimed series of single-composer albums for Sony Classical already featuring Liszt, Chopin and Rachmaninoff, as well as her two fascinating collections Motherland and Kaleidoscope (Mussorgsky, Ravel and Stravinsky). 

Khatia Buniatishvili made her début as a soloist with an orchestra when she was only six years old; by the age of ten she had played in Europe’s most prestigious halls, as well as in Israel and the United States of America, and has never looked back. 

Her career has advanced into many new dimensions, especially since receiving the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2010 and participating in the pioneering BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme (2009–11), as well as twice receiving the ECHO Klassik Award. Much in demand internationally, she performs regularly at leading halls around the world with top orchestras and conductors of the day. In 2018 she performed at the BBC Proms with Paavo Järvi. She is as likely to be invited to grace the front covers of high-end fashion magazines as classical music magazines, and appears regularly on French TV. 

Ms Buniatishvili will tour the Schubert album internationally throughout 2019 and will perform in Europe, Canada and North America.