While various Georgian festivals and competitions have been postponed in recent weeks, classical music enthusiasts can look forward to the second edition of the Tsinandali Festival in the country's sunlit eastern province of Kakheti later this year, with major artists like Martha Argerich and Lisa Batiashvili in the roster.
In a four-day programme of concerts at an amphitheatre of the estate where the event was inaugurated last year, the legendary pianist Argerich and award-winning violinist Batiashvili will be joined by conductors Nikoloz Rachveli and Gianandrea Noseda as well as pianist Nelson Goerner and other artists.
The post-lockdown festival will open on September 17 with Batiashvili, Rachveli and the Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra leading the celebration of renewed face-to-face musical occasions following the height of the outbreak.
Pianist Alexandre Kantorow and the Sukhishvili Georgian National Ballet will be the ones taking to the stage in the estate on the following day, before Lisa Batiashvili and Friends perform and Argerich and Goerner delight listeners as a duo on the third day.
The festival will come to a close on September 20 with Goerner joined by violinist Daniel Lozakovich, and the philharmonic orchestra performers teaming up with Argerich and led by Noseda.
Launched last year with an ambitious line-up of artists, the Tsinandali Festival invited its audience to a “600-seat chamber music hall and a 1200-seat amphitheatre of the state-of-the-art acoustics and architecture” in the estate.
The event was inaugurated with focus on regional promotion of music and an aim to create “rare opportunities for young musicians from the Caucasus and neighbouring countries”. Organisers promised to host the latter in seminars and master classes led by “some of the brightest names in today’s classical music”.