Giorgi Gigashvili

Born in Tbilisi in 2002, Giorgi Gigashvili initially had no intention of pursuing a professional career as a pianist. Instead, his passion was singing and arranging Georgian folk songs and pop songs. He even took part in the Georgian TV show “The Voice” at the age of thirteen, winning the competition. Gigashvili completed his regular musical education at the Central Paliashvili Music School for Gifted Children, at the Tbilisi State Conservatory with Revaz Tavadze, and, later, with Nelson Goerner in Geneva. Then as now, his greatest role model and idol has been Martha Argerich. The turning point in his career as a pianist came in April 2019, when he won First Prize at the Vigo International Piano Competition. Martha Argerich was the jury chair, with Nelson Freire at her side. A few months later, Gigashvili also won Third Prize and the Audience Prize at the Busoni Piano Competition in Bolzano, followed in 2021 by the Hortense Anda-Bührle Prize at the Concours Géza Anda in Zurich and an invitation to the Kissinger “Piano Olympics,” where he won First Prize and the Audience Prize. Most recently, in 2023, he won Second Prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, where he was also awarded two special prizes. In April 2023, Giorgi Gigashvili released his debut album on Alpha Classics, Meeting my Shadow, which contains works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Scriabin, and Messiaen. Since the fall of 2023, he has been studying in Kirill Gerstein’s master class at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. In addition to his career as a classical pianist, Gigashvili plays in the electronic and experimental band Tsuneba (a name signifying “temptation” in Georgian). He is currently sponsored by the Lisa Batiashvili Foundation and the stARTacademy of Bayer Kultur.

July 2024