Eliso VIRSSALADZE (piano)

Family traditions had a great impact on Eliso's career choice. Her childhood and youth passed in artistic atmosphere: a young pianist learnt from her grand-mother - an eminent Georgian artist and pedagogue A.D.Verssaladze, a professor of the Tbilisi conservatory (L.Vlasenko, D.Bashkirov and other well-known pianists started their careers in her class). She finished her studies at the post-graduate school in the class of professor Y.I.Zak. Even during Eliso Versaladze's student years the success waited upon her at different competitions. At 15 years old she won the Republic Youth Competition, two years later - she was a winner of the World Festival for Youth and Students in Vienne, followed by the third prizes at the All-Union Competition and 11th Schumann International Competition in Zwickau. It is admittedly that the romantic art is the closest to the pianist's artistic character. Schumann's pages, works of Schubert, Chopin, Liszt feature very largely in her repertoire. But E.Virsaladze's pianist role specialization is not limited to the above, she is delighted to perform works of Bach, Haydn, Skriabin, Prokofiev and, of course, Beethoven whose works will be performed at the Festival by the N.Gutman's ensemble and in the concert of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Nizhny Novgorod philharmonic. The public marked very high her elegant pianism, poetry, dedication to play and vigor of her performance.
One of the foreign reviewers wrote: "For one who sees for the first time an airy graceful figure of this lady it is difficult to imagine her play show so much will... she mesmerizes the public from the very first notes of hers".