Contact
Maike Charlotte Fuchsmf@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-220
Victoria Monterovm@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-237
General Management
In June 2024, Mariam Batsashvili was once again a guest at the Klavier Festival Ruhr. In a very personal interview with festival director Katrin Zagrosek in the run-up to the festival, she spoke about what composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Franz Liszt mean to her.
Newborns as music critics: With Liszt's Liebestraum No. 2, Mariam Batsashvili starts a series of recordings of "baby-friendly" works from the piano repertoire.
"Outstanding through and through": On 26 August, Miriam Batsashvili's second album was released on the Warner Classics label, centred on Liszt's piano transcriptions from the opera, lied, and organ repertoire.
“The sensitivity and accuracy with which she presents lyrical passages with airy lightness is breathtaking. In the Andante, one and the other's heart might even have skipped a beat as she sensitively let the melody, which then developed almost majestically, resound from the initial repeated notes. Her precise and very fine touch characterised the entire evening in the most exhilarating way, with sparkling runs and striking bass lines flowing from her fingers with such effortless ease that humour was always peeking around the corner.” Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 4/6/2024
Mariam Batsashvili’s musicianship seems to connect directly with one’s heart as she transforms every musical phrase into something special. Her colours of sound, thoughtful interpretations and stupendous touch move and delight her audiences. She also attracts a lot of attention for her exceptionally successful social media work, especially her video tutorials. Her debut album ‘Chopin & Liszt’ was released by Warner Classics in August 2019 and her second album ‘Romantic Piano Masters’ in August 2022.
She gained international recognition at the 10th Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht 2014 and was nominated by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) as ‘Rising Star’ for the 2016/17 season. She made her acclaimed debut at the Philharmonie Berlin as part of the series ‘Debüt im Deutschlandfunk Kultur’. As a BBC New Generation Artist, she made her debuts at the Cheltenham Festival, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and with the Ulster Orchestra at the BBC Proms. Since then, she has been a popular guest in the UK.
A regular guest at London’s Wigmore Hall and Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Mariam Batsashvili has given recitals in more than 30 countries – among these China, South Korea, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, France, Spain, Norway, the Baltic countries, Benelux and Germany. She made her debut at the Wiener Konzerthaus in May 2021. She has performed at numerous festivals such as the Edinburgh International Festival, the Schumannfest Düsseldorf, the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Milan Piano City Festival and the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in Toulouse.
In the 2024/25 season, she will perform at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, in the ‘Kammermusik +’ series of the Heidelberger Frühling, at the Konzerthaus Berlin and on tour with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra under Shiyeon Sung at the Großes Festspielhaus Salzburg and in Belgium as well as with the Hallé Orchestra Manchester under Kahchun Wong.
Mariam Batsashvili began studying piano at the age of five with Natalie Natsvlishvilian at the Evgeni Mikeladze Music School in her home city of Tbilisi. At the same time, she developed a particular passion for the piano works of Franz Liszt. She continued her studies under the aegis of Grigory Gruzman at the University of Music in Weimar, named after the Romantic composer. In 2011 she won First Prize at the International Franz Liszt Competition for Young Pianists in Weimar, and received the prestigious Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Award in 2015. Mariam Batsashvili is a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and is supported by The Keyboard Charitable Trust. She has been an official Yamaha Artist since 2017.
2024/25 season
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J.S. Bach: Partita No. 2 C minorF. Schubert: 4 Impromptus, Op. 90F. Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos. 11, 12, 13, 14W.A. Mozart: Sonata No. 18 K.576J. Brahms: Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 118F. Schubert: 4 Impromptus, Op. 142
(for the season of 2024/25)
"Mariam Batsashvili served this up with breathtaking ease and elegance."
Hamburger Abendblatt, Elisabeth Richter, 9 October 2024
“[...] one thing is certain: through Batsashvili Liszt speaks to a new generation.”
Pianist UK, Peter Quantrill, Aug/Sept 2020
“Her technical prowess and ability to negotiate Liszt’s showy grandeur is a given, but her sense of his inner world, his wistful, nonchalant poetry – in the Grande études in A flat or the Consolations (Pensées poétiques) or the Polish Songs after Chopin – sets her apart as one to watch.”
The Observer, Fiona Maddocks, 18/09/2019
“Mariam Batsashvili began Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B minor powerfully – but not with violence, rather with grandeur. […] The young pianist has a superbly clear attack, and technically speaking plays perfectly, without being interested in perfection or making a show of it. No, she is interested in something quite different: in maintaining intimate contact with the accompanying orchestra, for example, not only with her playing, but also physically, with looks and gestures. She understands music making as concert-giving in the best sense – together.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung, Egbert Tholl, 13/05/2017
“With its extreme technical challenges, the work [Liszt’s Sonata in B minor] is not easily accessible for a wide audience. The night before last, however, these difficulties didn’t seem to be a hindrance, rather an incentive for the young star pianist from Georgia, who knew to emphasise to the full the expressive moments in the distinctive thundering ostinato passages.”
Heraldo de Aragón, Luis Alfonso Bes, 26/04/2017
“he competition can consider itself fortunate with a winner like Mariam Batsashvili. For her natural and poignant interpretations, charismatic appearance and a tone quality rarely heard among virtuosos.”
The Pianist UK
“Batsashvili is a brilliant and imaginative musician who infuses her playing with a suggestive tension.”
Eindhovens Dagblad (The Netherlands)
“One of the pianists that I am looking forward to hearing again. Her performance was very sensitive. It felt as if she could transmit her musical thoughts very well.”
Chopin magazine (Japan)
“She send out so many otherworldly aesthetic moments in her playing, and all come naturally. The spirit of Liszt gracefully immersed in her interpretation.”
Piano Artistry (China)
Mariam Batsashvili
Warner Classics, Aug 2019, 9222525