Khatia Buniatishvili

Born in Georgia in 1987, Khatia Buniatishvili was introduced to the piano by her mother. Her talent was soon recognized when and she made her debut with orchestra the age of six. She was subsequently invited to foreign guest performances in Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Russia, Israel and the USA.

Khatia Buniatishvili won the special prize of the Horowitz Piano Competition in Kiev in 2003 and the first prize of the Elizabeth Leonskaya Scholarship. At the 2003 Piano Competition in Tbilisi, she became acquainted with Oleg Maisenberg, who convinced her to transfer to Vienna’s Academy for Music and the Performing Arts. At the 12th Artur Rubinstein Competition in 2008, she won the third prize and was distinguished as the Best Performer of a Chopin Piece and the Audience Favourite.

She has appeared at many prestigious festivals including Verbier Festival, Progetto Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer's Internationales Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus, Gstaad Festival and La Roque d’Anthéron Festival as well as performing with the Israel Philharmonic, the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philhadelphia Orchestra and Larry Foster at the Saratoga Festival, the NDR Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Paavo Järvi. In 2008 she made her US performing debut at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall) with the Chopin Piano Concerto No 2. The following year she performed the Mendelssohn Double Concerto with Gidon Kremer at the Musikverein Vienna and toured with him and the Kremerata Baltica to Milan (La Scala), Rome, Pavia and Istanbul. Upcoming engagements will see her perform with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris with Paavo Järvi.

She has given critically-acclaimed solo recitals and chamber music concerts in halls including the Wigmore Hall in London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Musikverein Vienna. Many musicians and journalists see Khatia Buniatishvili as one of the great pianists of the future. She is a BBC New Generation Artist for the two coming seasons and as such regularly collaborates with the BBC orchestras. She received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award 2010 and the same year she signed an exclusive contract with Sony. She is Rising Star for the season 2011/12, nominated by the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus in Vienna.

She has performed with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi, a tour of Japan and Europe with the Kremerata Baltica, a tour with the Basel Chamber Orchestra under Krystian Järvi and a tour of the United States, including a series of concerts with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski. She also can be seen at her appearances with the Philharmonia under Paavo Järvi, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra della Scala, Milan,under Gianandrea Noseda, the Orchestre de Paris under Andrey Boreyko to name only the most important. Furthermore recitals will also take her to Singapore, Tokyo, Barcelona, Paris, London, and Baden-Baden, among others.

Her 2011 debut album marked Liszthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liszt’s 200th anniversary, and included his Sonata in B minor, Liebestraum No 3, La Campanella, Hungarian Rhapsody No 2, and Mephisto Waltz. This recording was followed by a 2012 album devoted to Chopin, combining solo piano works with Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, accompanied by the Orchestre de Paris and Paavo Järvi. In 2014, Buniatishvili released her third album on Sony Classical, titled “Motherland”. Rather than being devoted to one particular composer as her previous albums were,”Motherland” was an assortment of personally significant pieces, including music from her homeland Georgia. She dedicated the album to her mother. Her fourth album, “Kaleidoscope”, was released in 2016. It featured her interpretation of “Pictures at an Exhibition“ as well as works by Ravelhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravel and Stravinskyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stravinsky. She is two times ECHO Klassik Award winner in 2012 and 2016 for her Liszt album and for “Kaleidoscope”.