Manfred Honeck
Conductor

Mao Fujita
Piano

With an innate musical sensitivity and naturalness to his artistry, 21-year old pianist Mao Fujita has already impressed many leading musicians as one of those special talents which come along only rarely, equally at home in Mozart as the major romantic repertoire.
Born in Tokyo, Fujita was still studying at the Tokyo College of Music in 2017 when he took First Prize at the prestigious Concours International de Piano Clara Haskil in Switzerland, along with the Audience Award, Prix Modern Times, and the Prix Coup de Coeur, which first brought him to the attention of the international music community. He was also the Silver Medalist at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow where his special musical qualities received exceptional attention from the jury of leading musicians as well as Valery Gergiev who has invited him on a number of international tours since.

Fujita has been invited to appear in recital at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, at Verbier Festival as Academy Musician, and in the New Generation series at the Louis Vuitton Foundation. Orchestral highlights include his London debut with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra in 2019, and performances with top Japanese orchestras such as the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. In Tokyo in 2019, he jumped in a two days’ notice to perform the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.2 with the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev to rapturous acclaim.

Fujita’s breathtaking performance at the Tchaikovsky Competition in particular has earned invitations at the very highest level worldwide, and the 2020/21 season will see him make his debuts with the Munich Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras under the baton of some of the world’s most prestigious conductors such as Gergiev, Petrenko and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. In recital, Fujita appears at London’s Wigmore Hall, Schloss Elmau and next summer’s Verbier Festival where he will perform a complete cycle of the Mozart piano sonatas. He will also make his debut at the Tsinandali and Riga-Jurmala Festivals in 2021.

Starting piano lessons at the age of three, Fujita won his first international prize in 2010 at the World Classic in Taiwan, and became a laureate of numerous national and international competitions such as the Rosario Marciano International Piano Competition in Vienna (2013), Zhuhai International Mozart Competition for Young Musicians (2015), and the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Piano Competition (2016).

Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra

The Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra was created in 2019 for the first edition of the Tsinandali Festival. It is a full symphony orchestra led by Music Director Maestro Gianandrea Noseda.

Every year, live auditions are held to select young and talented musicians from the Caucasus countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Ukraine and Turkmenistan. As members of the PCYO, they are given the chance to work with world class international coaches, conductors and soloists during the Tsinandali Festival.