Freedom at the Piano

Not just classical music: Giorgi Gigashvili goes beyond the idea of a traditional career as a pianist. After an inspiring fellowship at the festival 2024, ranging from pop to folk to new music, he returns in 2025 as soloist of Ustvolskaya’s Piano Concerto, among others.

Giorgi Gigashvili is all about freedom. This begins with the instrument, the mastery of which put the young Georgian onto the map of the music scene with his second place at the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition in Tel Aviv in 2023. In his home country of Georgia, however, Gigashvili, who was born in Tbilisi in 2000, has been famous since his youth: at the age of 13, he was in the final of the Georgian edition of »The Voice«, where he shone as a pop singer. Even earlier, at the age of four, he sang in a folk ensemble: »I am very grateful to my mum for taking me there. My brain would have developed differently, my taste in music and the musical richness would not have been possible without this experience.«

Musically, therefore, many hearts beat in his chest. However, Gigashvili manages to harmonise even apparent opposites: As a Fellowship Programme artist at Beethovenfest 2024, he and singer Nini Nutsubidze combined works by Mendelssohn, Grieg and Bartók with centuries-old Georgian sound traditions. Together with his friend and electronic artist Nikala Zubiashvili, he realised the ›Serious Music‹ project, which pokes a little fun at how seriously ›serious music‹ is played. »After all,« he says, »what is classical music today was once ›pop‹ two hundred years ago. So when you play Beethoven today, it always has to have something modern about it.« He also premiered his own Piano Concerto alongside the poetic and brutal music of the Soviet composer, Alfred Schnittke.

At Beethovenfest 2025, he will again embark on the Soviet legacy together with the East-West Chamber Orchestra. Two works with solo piano, framed by Shostakovich and Weinberg, will take centre stage. Galina Ustvolskaya’s Piano Concerto was composed one year after the end of the Second World War. Gigashvili will also play the solo part in the world premiere of »Leaving Behind« by Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür. A memorial to war, flight and expulsion, even today.

The fact that he has recently moved from Tbilisi to Berlin is mainly due to the economic situation. It is difficult for musicians to play concerts outside the mainstream in the Caucasus republic. In addition, the scene is unsettled: the smouldering dispute between the long-serving culture minister Tea Tsulukiani and the Georgian art world has recently attracted international attention. »Everything has to be the way she wants it to be. That makes creating art very difficult. Because all artists naturally want to work according to their own ideas. But if someone doesn’t agree with them, they are rejected. She prefers to surround herself with people without taste,« says Gigashvili, adding with a shy laugh: »Please write this if you can!«

We can. Berlin as a place of hope for the arts – even if not everything is perfect there at the moment, the city has retained its reputation as a haven of freedom to this day. Musically, anyway: in Berlin there are not only opportunities to perform, but also an audience that is willing to go along with experiments. Because that is what Gigashvili’s projects have remained: »It’s about being true to yourself. And if people don’t like it, I can do better. That doesn’t scare me at all!« Freedom – there it appears again.