Winemaking city Telavi transforms into classical music centre

The 2015 Telavi International Music Festival is this year celebrating the 100th birthday of late famous Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter with a special line-up of Georgian and foreign artists.

The annual festival, starting on Saturday October 10, will honour Richter (1915-1997) a self-taught pianist who was later considered one of the best pianists of the 20th Century.

The nine-day event in Georgia’s eastern town of Telavi will feature performances by the Festival’s founder, internationally acclaimed pianist Eliso Virsaladze, alongside award-winning violinist Andrey Baranov, opera singer Vittorio Vitelli, conductor Ariel Zuckermann and other well-known performers and bands.

The Georgian National Symphony Orchestra and Tbilisi State Chamber Orchestra Georgian Sinfonietta will also perform during the Festival.

World-famous pianist Eliso Virsaladze established the Telavi International Music Festival in the 1980s. Photo by the Festival's Facebook page.

Over nine days the event will include seven concerts as well as opera and piano evenings, with master classes for young piano and violin artists and teachers also in the program.

The Festival will conclude on October 18 with a gala concert featuring Virsaladze and Zuckermann, who will perform works by Ludwig van Beethoven and Maurice Ravel.

The Telavi International Music Festival was established by Virsaladze in the 1980s. In early years it attracted some of the greatest performers from across the former Soviet Union before it was discontinued after the Union’s dissolution and the economic hardships that followed.

It was not until 2010 that Virsaladze was able to resurrect the classical music event and turn it into an annual festival with the support of Georgia’s Culture Ministry.

Georgia’s Centre for Protection, Development and Promotion of Classical Music is organising the 2015 festival.

The full program of the 2015 event can be viewed here.