The Bridge-Builder

Georgia, a country with an eventful history and a rich musical heritage: alongside star violinist Lisa Batiashvili and other artists, it will be a key focus of Beethovenfest Bonn 2026.

If you look at a globe and let your eyes wander to the eastern end of the Black Sea, then squint slightly, you might think that the small strip of land stretching from there to the Caspian Sea is a bridge. A bridge between the south-eastern edges of the European continent and West Asia. The part of this region in the Caucasus that has formed the Republic of Georgia since 1991 has experienced an eventful history between continents, empires and (more recently) nations. Whether Arab rulers, Mongols, Persian dynasties, the Ottomans, the Russian Tsarist Empire or the Soviet Union – they all pursued their strategic interests in the region at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, often by force. At the same time, over the millennia, the Georgian people managed to preserve their own language (unrelated to the surrounding languages), their alphabet, their literature and, not least, their music.

»That is a miracle!« says violinist Lisa Batiashvili, who is at the centre of a special focus on Georgia at the 2026 Beethovenfest Bonn. »We realised that we were in a very difficult geopolitical situation, with many conflicts all around us. Somehow, we always had to survive. If you look back at history, you see that, on the one hand, Georgians have always placed immense importance on their own culture and heritage. On the other hand – and this is crucial – they have always remained adaptable and cooperative.«
 

And what role has music played, and continues to play, in this? »In Western Europe, most pop or folk songs are about love or broken hearts and other disappointments in life. In Georgia, however, they are almost always about home, about samshoblo. So perhaps people’s greatest love is their country.« Certainly not all Georgians are musical geniuses, but music is a central, lived part of everyday life: »In Georgia, music is a completely natural language. People often sing at the table and during celebrations. It is part of our communication.«

Having grown up in a family of musicians – her father Tamaz was a violinist in the Georgian Soviet Republic’s national string quartet – Batiashvili experienced the upheavals of the collapsing USSR and left Georgia, which had just gained independence but was still unstable, in 1991 at the age of twelve. She crossed the imaginary bridge from the Caucasus to the West for the first time, ending up first in Hamburg, then in Munich. By that point, Europe had long been a place of great significance and idealisation for her: »From his tours abroad – his quartet was the only Georgian ensemble permitted to leave the USSR – my father brought back, above all, stories of life in freedom. This planted the idea in my mind that I too would one day go to a free country to flourish there. And that is exactly what happened.«

Lisa Batiashvili enjoyed a meteoric rise, winning competitions and getting to know the great stars of the classical music world, a circle to which she herself soon belonged. From an early age, she established herself in numerous cities around the world. At the opening concert of her Beethovenfest residency »City Lights« on 20 September, one can trace these global connections, from her home city of Tbilisi with Gija Kancheli, via Buenos Aires with Astor Piazzolla, to Helsinki with Jean Sibelius.

But Batiashvili builds bridges in more ways than just through music: for the past four years, she has been supporting young artists from Georgia through her own foundation as they make their way onto concert stages around the world. »They are truly great talents. And yet they actually need everything, from A to Z: funding, but also contacts and guidance to understand how life as a musician works.« The results of her work can be heard on 3 October: Batiashvili will then perform alongside three scholarship holders, including the exceptionally talented pianist and composer Tsotne Zedginidze.

And where does Lisa Batiashvili herself feel at home? »I’ve asked myself this question time and again over the years, and my answers have varied. These days, I feel at home in Berlin, although my homeland is, of course, Georgia. But with a French husband and children who are growing up between Georgia and Germany, there are so many places that feel like home.«