European Centre for Art, Culture and Science

Saturday June 6 2009 / Arts & Philosophy

Michel Sogny presents: Elisso Bolkvadze

Elisso Bolkvadze (Georgia) and Alexandra Masaleva (14, Russia) are very talented pianists who will make their first appearance in the Netherlands on June 6 and 7. French-Hungarian educationalist Michel Sogny teached them following his special piano method and he proudly presents them to the Amsterdam public.

Elisso Bolkvadze was born in Tiflis, Georgia, and grew up in a family of poets and literati. At the young age of four Elisso was accepted by a school for highly gifted children in Tiflis and performed her first concert with orchestra when she was only seven. She studied at the conservatory and attended master classes by Tatiana Nikolayeva, Lev Naumov and Serge Milshtein. In 1995 Elisso Bolkvadze met Michel Sogny, who was enchanted by the fragile musician. He started to nurture her enormous talent and had a major influence on Elisso's musical future. In the past few years Elisso Bolkvadze earned numerous international awards, such as at the  Bach International Competition, Leipzig, at Vianna Da Motta, Lisbon, Van Cliburn, USA, Marguerite Long, Paris and at the Axa Dublin International Piano Competition, Dublin. In addition to these musical awards Elisso was awarded the medal of honour of Georgia in 1993.

She recorded the Tchaïkovski, Rachmaninov, Saint-Saëns and Liszt concerti for the Sony label. Just a couple of weeks ago the pianist finished recordings for her new CD on Swiss Cascavelle label. Elisso Bolkvadze has performed at some of the most prestigious concert halls in Europe and the US. At the festival "Michel Sogny presents", she will make her first appearance in the Netherlands.

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