Tsinandali Festival unveils concert programme for Georgia’s biggest classical music event
The Tsinandali Festival will hold its eighth edition from September 3 to 13 at the Tsinandali Estate in Georgia’s Kakheti wine region, with the Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra performing four concerts under conductors Gianandrea Noseda, Daniel Harding and Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider.
The Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra brings together young musicians from across the Caucasus countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, learning from internationally renowned conductors, coaches and soloists during a four-week residential training programme.
The orchestra opens the festival on September 3 with Noseda and violinist Lisa Batiashvili performing Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. On September 6, Noseda returns with violinist Pinchas Zukerman for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Mussorgsky/Ravel’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Rafael Payare conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”, with soprano Chen Reiss and mezzo-soprano Okka von der Damerau on September 9, before Szeps-Znaider closes the festival on September 13 with pianist Davit Khrikuli in a programme of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier Suite and Ravel’s La Valse.
Performers across the festival include pianists Sergei Babayan, Marc-André Hamelin and Alexander Malofeev, violinists Raphaël Feuillâtre, Ilya Gringolts and Sayaka Shoji, mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili and cellist Kian Soltani.
Chamber music programmes will feature works by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Franck, Stravinsky, Weinberg and Debussy, alongside performances from the Sukhishvili National Ballet of Georgia, a Lisa Batiashvili Foundation concert and a staging of Bizet’s La Tragédie de Carmen.
Programmes are curated by the festival’s joint founders and artistic directors, Martin Engstroem and Avi Shoshani.
“Due to its geographic location Georgia has long been a crossroads for trade and cultural exchange among nations of diverse cultural and political backgrounds,” said George Ramishvili, chairman of the Silk Road Group and chairman and founder of the Tsinandali Festival.