Tsinandali Festival Announces Third Successive Annual Festival

The Festival opens with Rachmaninoff’s third Piano Concerto and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé played by the Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra.

Georgia’s Tsinandali Festival has shown resilience typical of the country and its history. While last year’s Festival was more concise than originally planned, concerts with audiences were presented with leading artists such as Martha Argerich coming to Tsinandali to enjoy its unique atmosphere in the open-air auditorium.

This year the Festival is presenting a full programme over a 12-day period with many great musicians returning to the Tsinandali Festival to show their solidarity with the Festival and reaffirm it as one of the world’s leading festivals.

When the Tsinandali Festival was launched in 2019 at the historic Tsinandali Estate in the heart of Georgia’s wine country, two new auditoria were built including a large outdoor auditorium where all the main evening concerts are presented.

The Festival opens with Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé played by the Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lahav Shani, with a pianist Yefim Bronfman.

Gianandrea Noseda, the Festival’s Music Director, and the Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra perform works by Schumann and Mendelssohn with pianist Mikhail Pletnev (16 September) as well as the finale to the Festival with Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 and Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3 played with Georgian-born violinist Lisa Batiashvili.

The rest of the Festival lives up to its reputation of hosting the best a Festival can offer including: Christoph Eschenbach conducting and as pianist; Pinchas Zukerman conducting and as a violinist; pianists Elena Bashkirova, Yefim Bronfman, Mao Fujita, Mikhail Pletnev, Sergei Redkin, Fazil Say, András Schiff and Lahav Shani; violinists Lisa Batiashvili, Marc Bouchkov and Vadim Repin; cellists Amanda Forsyth and Alexander Ramm; flautist Stathis Karapanos; baritones Matthias Goerne and Thomas Hampson, plus Thomas Quasthoff and his jazz group.

Securing these artists and devising programming that fully captures what a festival should be – the coming together of great artists to perform together in differing groupings – is due to the Festival’s two Artistic Directors, Martin Engstroem and Avi Shoshani who commented:

“It’s testament to many people that this year’s Tsinandali Festival is able to take place – our thanks go to the artists, the audiences, our supporters and above all to the local team headed-up by David Sakvarelidze whose collective loyalty to George Ramishvili’s vision for a world-class Festival remains as strong as ever.”

The health and safety of participating artists and audience members is the Festival’s highest priority. Georgia’s government guidelines and high levels of hygiene will be adhered to throughout the course of the Festival.

Credit: Broadway World – News