Lisa Batiashvili
Elisabeth Batiashvili (Georgian: ელისაბედ ბათიაშვილი; born 7 March 1979), professionally known as Lisa Batiashvili, is a prominent Georgian violinist active across Europe and the United States. A former New York Philharmonic artist-in-residence, she is acclaimed for her "natural elegance, silky sound and the meticulous grace of her articulation".[1] Batiashvili makes frequent appearances at high-profile international events; she was the violin soloist at the 2018 Nobel Prize concert.[2]
Lisa Batiashvili
7 March 1979
Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
Sony Classical/SME, Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Classics
Early life and education[edit]
Batiashvili was born in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, to a violinist father and a pianist mother. She began learning violin with her father from age four. The family left Georgia in 1991 when she was 12 years old, and settled in Germany.[3][4] She later studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. Mark Lubotsky, her teacher in Hamburg, had been a student of David Oistrakh, for whom Shostakovich wrote his violin concertos.[5][6] Later, Lisa Batiashvili also studied with Ana Chumachenco.
In 1995, aged 16, she placed 2nd at the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki.[7]
Career[edit]
Performances[edit]
Batiashvili was one of the first of the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists, from 1999 to 2001. She has collaborated in chamber music and concerto performances with cellist Alban Gerhardt and pianist Steven Osborne, both BBC New Generation Artists exactly contemporary with Batiashvili.[8][9][10][11][12] She has also worked with a later BBC New Generation Artist, Ashley Wass, in recital.[13] She made her BBC Proms debut in 2000.[14]
Dedications and commissions[edit]
Magnus Lindberg dedicated a violin concerto to her, the world premiere of which she gave at Avery Fisher Hall, New York, on 22 August 2006 and European premiere in Sweden in October.[15][16][17] Batiashvili and her husband, oboist François Leleux, commissioned from the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli the double concerto Broken Chant, which they premiered in February 2008 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London.[18] She also commissioned a solo violin encore from her compatriot Igor Loboda for solo violin, "Requiem for Ukraine", which was meant to be a statement against conductor Valery Gergiev's cozy relationship with the regime of Vladimir Putin.[1]
Artist in residence[edit]
Batiashavili became artist-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic for the 2014/15 season, and with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for the 2017/18 season.[19][20] In parallel, she has an artist residency with the NDR Symphony Orchestra.[21]
Commercial recordings[edit]
Her commercial recordings include Magnus Lindberg's Violin Concerto No. 1 as part of her recording contract with Sony Classical, which she signed in 2007. And more recently, she has recorded several albums with Deutsche Grammophon, including in 2016, an album of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius Violin Concertos and in 2017, an album of Prokofiev's works including his Violin Concertos 1 and 2.[22]
Instrument[edit]
She plays a 1739 Guarneri del Gesu violin (Cozio 61377) lent to her from the private collection of an anonymous German collector.[1]
