I heard Lisa Batiashvili for the first time while I was on vacation in Toronto many years ago. She was fairly new to the concert stage, yet I heard a lot of promise in her playing. I was right…
Lisa was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1979. Her father was a violinist and her mother a pianist. Before age three she was playing a miniature violin. She also studied piano in her childhood. From age eight, she studied music at a Tbilisi music school for gifted children.
Amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union, her family emigrated to Munich, Germany, when she was 11. She studied music at the Hamburg Musikhochschule with Mark Lubotski and at the Munich Musikhochschule with Ana Chumachenco.
At age 16 Batiashvili captured the second prize at the Helsinki-based Sibelius Competition.
Here is Ms. Batiashvili in the Violin Concerto by Tchaikovsky:
