Elisabeth Batiashvili ( ka, ელისაბედ ბათიაშვილი; born 7 March 1979), professionally known as Lisa Batiashvili, is a prominent Georgian

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

ist active across Europe and the United States. A former

New York Philharmonic The New York Philharmonic is an American symphony orchestra based in New York City. Known officially as the ''Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc.'', and globally known as the ''New York Philharmonic Orchestra'' (NYPO) or the ''New Yo ...

artist-in-residence, she is acclaimed for her "natural elegance, silky sound and the meticulous grace of her articulation". Batiashvili makes frequent appearances at high-profile international events; she was the violin soloist at the 2018

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

concert.

Early life and education

Batiashvili was born in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი, ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), ( ka, ტფილისი, tr ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia ( ...

, the capital of Georgia, to a violinist father and a

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

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. She later studied at the

Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg The Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg is one of the larger College or university school of music, universities of music in Germany. It was founded in 1950 as ''Staatliche Hochschule für Musik'' (Public college of music) on the base of t ...

. Mark Lubotsky, her teacher in Hamburg, had been a student of

David Oistrakh David Fyodorovich Oistrakh (; – 24 October 1974) was a Soviet Russian violinist, List of violists, violist, and Conducting, conductor. He was also Professor at the Moscow Conservatory, People's Artist of the USSR (1953), and Laureate of the ...

, for whom Shostakovich wrote his violin concertos. Later, Lisa Batiashvili also studied with

Ana Chumachenco Ana Chumachenco is an Italian born violinist of Argentinian, Ukrainian, and German descent. Biography Ana Chumachenco was born in Padova, Italy, on 23 June 1945. From the age of four, Chumachenco practiced violin under the guidance of her fathe ...

. In 1995, aged 16, she placed 2nd at the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki.

Career

Performances

Batiashvili was one of the first of the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists, from 1999 to 2001. She has collaborated in

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

and concerto performances with cellist Alban Gerhardt and pianist Steven Osborne, both BBC New Generation Artists exactly contemporary with Batiashvili. She has also worked with a later BBC New Generation Artist,

Ashley Wass Ashley Wass (born 26 March 1977) is a British classical pianist and director of music at the Yehudi Menuhin School. He was winner of the London International Piano Competition in 1997, a prizewinner at the Leeds Piano Competition in 2000, an ...

, in recital. She made her BBC Proms debut in 2000.

Dedications and commissions

Magnus Lindberg dedicated a violin concerto to her, the world premiere of which she gave at

Avery Fisher Hall David Geffen Hall is a concert hall at Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The 2,200-seat auditorium opened in 1962, and is the home of the New York Philharmonic. The facility, designed by Max Abramovitz, was o ...

, New York, on 22 August 2006 and European premiere in Sweden in October. Batiashvili and her husband, oboist

François Leleux François Leleux (born July 1971 in Croix, Nord) is a French oboist, conductor, and professor. His professional career began at 18 when he became principal oboe at the Paris Opera. He went on to win a solo position at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Or ...

, commissioned from the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli the double concerto ''Broken Chant'', which they premiered in February 2008 with the

BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The ...

in London. 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 Valery Abisalovich Gergiev (, ; ; born 2 May 1953) is a Russian conducting, conductor and opera company director. He is currently general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre and of the Bolshoi Theatre and artistic director o ...

's cozy relationship with the regime of

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

.Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim
Politics Is Personal, and Professional: Lisa Batiashvili on Violins, Ukraine and Valery Gergiev
', The

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, 31 January 2015

Artist in residence

Batiashavili was artist-in-residence with the

for the 2014/15 season, and with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for the 2017/18 season. In parallel, she has an artist residency with the

NDR Symphony Orchestra The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra () is a German radio orchestra. Affiliated with the ''Norddeutscher Rundfunk'' (NDR; North German Broadcasting), the orchestra is based at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany. Earlier the ensemble was call ...

. She has been the artist in Residence with the

Berlin Philharmonic The Berlin Philharmonic () is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world. Throughout the 20th century, the orchestra was led by conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler (1922� ...

for the 2023–24 season.

Commercial recordings

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.

Instrument

She plays a 1739

Guarneri del Gesu Bartolomeo Giuseppe "del Gesù" Guarneri (, , ; 21 August 1698 – 17 October 1744) was an Italian luthier from the Guarneri family of Cremona. He rivals Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737) with regard to the respect and reverence accorded his inst ...

violin ( Cozio 61377) lent to her from the private collection of an anonymous German collector. She is foreign member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Music The Royal Swedish Academy of Music (), founded in 1771 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in ...

Private life

Batiashvili is married to French

oboist An oboist (formerly hautboist) is a musician who plays the oboe or any oboe family instrument, including the oboe d'amore, cor anglais or English horn, bass oboe and piccolo oboe or oboe musette. The following is a list of notable past and pres ...

. They have resided in both

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

and France with their two children.

Discography

* 2001: ''Works For Violin & Piano'' – Elizabeth Batiashvili performs works by

Brahms Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, often set within studied ye ...

Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (German: �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the or ...

Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...

. Published by

EMI Classics EMI Classics was a record label founded by Thorn EMI in 1990 to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogues for internationally distributed classical music releases. After Thorn EMI demerged in 1996, its recorded mus ...

2001. * 2007: ''European Concert from Berlin'' –

conducted by Sir

Simon Rattle Sir Simon Denis Rattle (born 19 January 1955) is a British conductor with German citizenship. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rat ...

. Including Brahms: Symphony No. 4; & Double Concerto op. 102 performed by Batiashvili (violin) and

Truls Mørk Truls Olaf Otterbech Mørk (born 25 April 1961) is a Norwegian cellist. Biography Mørk was born in Bergen, Norway to a cellist father, John Fritjof Mørk, and a pianist mother, Turid Otterbech. His mother began teaching him the piano when he ...

(cello). Published by EuroArt, 1 May 2007. * 2007: ''Sibelius / Lindberg'' – Lisa Batiashvili and the

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Finnish: ''Radion sinfoniaorkesteri'', Swedish: ''Radions symfoniorkester''; abbreviated as RSO) is a Finnish Radio orchestra, broadcast orchestra based in Helsinki, and the orchestra of the Finnish Broadcasti ...

conducted by

Sakari Oramo Sakari Markus Oramo, (born 26 October 1965) is a Finnish conductor. He is chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Biography and career Born in Helsinki, Oramo is the son of two music academics who taught at the Sibelius Academy, Ilk ...

: Jean Sibelius

Violin Concerto A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin (occasionally, two or more violins) and instrumental ensemble (customarily orchestra). Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up thro ...

& Magnus Lindberg Violin Concerto No. 1. Published by

Sony Classical Sony Classical is an American record label founded in 1924 as Columbia Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. In 1980, the Columbia Masterworks label was renamed as CBS Masterworks Records. The CBS Records Group was acquired ...

, 10 September 2007. *2008: ''Mozart'' – Mozart's Oboe Quartet in F, K370, and 3 Arias from The Magic Flute. Performed by Francois Leleux, Lisa Batiashvili, Laurence Power and Sebastian Klinger. Published by Sony Classical, 16 December 2008. * 2009: ''Beethoven / Tsintsadze'' – Lisa Batiashvili (Violin and directing),

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...

Sulkhan Tsintsadze Sulkhan Fyodorovich Tsintsadze ( Georgian: სულხან ცინცაძე, Russian: Сулхан Фёдорович Цинцадзе; August 23, 1925 – September 15, 1991) was a Georgian composer known for his chamber music and his film ...

, 6 Miniatures. Published by

, 3 March 2009. * 2011: ''Echoes of Time'' – works by

Arvo Pärt Arvo Pärt (; born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in p ...

Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and Conducting, conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a compos ...

, Giya Kancheli and

Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded as a major composer. Shostak ...

, with

Hélène Grimaud Hélène Rose Paule Grimaud (born 7 November 1969) is a French classical pianist and the founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York. Early life and education Grimaud was born in Aix-en-Provence, France, the daughter of te ...

and the

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (, BRSO) is a German radio orchestra. Based in Munich, Germany, it is one of the city's four orchestras. The BRSO is one of two full-size symphony orchestras operated under the auspices of Bayerischer Rundf ...

under

Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish conducting, conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Sw ...

. Published by

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

, 15 February 2011. * 2013: ''Brahms & Clara Schumann'' – Brahms: Violin Concerto &

Clara Schumann Clara Josephine Schumann (; ; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic music, Romantic era, she exerted her influence o ...

– Three Romances for Violin and Piano.

Staatskapelle Dresden The Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden (), or Saxon State Orchestra Dresden, is one of the oldest orchestras in the world, created by order of Maurice, Elector of Saxony in 1548. Under communist East Germany and until 1992 it was called Staatskap ...

under

Christian Thielemann Christian Thielemann (born 1 April 1959) is a German conductor. He is Generalmusikdirektor of the Berlin State Opera (''Staatsoper Unter den Linden'') and chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Berlin. Biography and career Born in West Berlin, ...

; Alice Sara Ott and Lisa Batiashvili. Published by

, 8 January 2013. * 2013: ''Tchaikovsky: Pathétique'' – Tchaikovsky Symphonie No. 6 ''Pathétique'', and Selected Romances – Opus 6 and Opus 73. Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by

Yannick Nézet-Séguin Yannick Nézet-Séguin, CC (; born Yannick Séguin;David Patrick Stearns, "Nezet-Seguin signs Philadelphia Orchestra contract". ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', 19 June 2010. 6 March 1975) is a Canadian conductor and pianist. He is the music dir ...

. Published by

, 20 September 2013. * 2014: ''Bach'' – Lisa Batiashvili plays works by

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Help:IPA/Standard German, �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety ...

and

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788), also formerly spelled Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, and commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German composer and musician of the Baroque and Classical period. He was the fifth ch ...

. Published by

, 16 September 2014.Deutsche Grammophon, 2014, Lisa Batiashvili, Johann Sebastian Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
* 2016: ''Tchaikovsky / Sibelius'' – Lisa Batiashvili plays Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto & Sibelius Violin Concerto with the

Staatskapelle Berlin The Staatskapelle Berlin () is a German orchestra and the resident orchestra of the Berlin State Opera, Unter den Linden. The orchestra is one of the oldest in the world. Until the fall of the German Empire in 1918 the orchestra's name was , i.e ...

under

Daniel Barenboim Daniel Moses Barenboim (; born 15 November 1942) is an Argentines, Argentine-Israeli classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin, who also has Spain, Spanish and State of Palestine, Palestinian citizenship. From 1992 until January 2023, Bare ...

. Published by Deutsche Grammophon, 4 November 2016. * 2016: ''

Waldbühne The Waldbühne (''Woodland Stage'' or ''Forest Stage'') is an amphitheatre at Olympiapark Berlin in Berlin, Germany. It was designed by German architect Werner March in emulation of a Greek theatre and built between 1934 and 1936 as the Dietrich ...

– Czech Night'' – Lisa Batiashvilli's live performance with the

, conducted by

, works by

Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8September 18411May 1904) was a Czech composer. He frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predec ...

and

Bedřich Smetana Bedřich Smetana ( ; ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival". He has been regarded ...

. Published by EuroArt. * 2018: ''Visions of Prokofiev'' – Violin Concertos 1&2, and excerpts from Romeo and Juliet, and the Love for Three Oranges. Published by

. * In addition, a variety of recordings of modern music, including

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...

Harrison Birtwistle Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include '' T ...

Olli Mustonen Olli Mustonen (born 7 June 1967) is a Finnish pianist, conductor, and composer. Biography Mustonen studied harpsichord and piano from the age of five with Ralf Gothóni and then Eero Heinonen. He studied composition with Einojuhani Rautavaar ...

and Ernst von Dohnányi

References

External links

* *
Profile

{{DEFAULTSORT:Batiashvili, Lisa 1979 births Living people Classical violinists from Georgia (country) International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition prize-winners Women classical violinists BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists 21st-century women musicians 21st-century classical violinists Deutsche Grammophon artists 20th-century women musicians 20th-century classical violinists Musicians from Tbilisi Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg alumni Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music