Giorgi Gigashvili

Giorgi Gigashvili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2000. Although he learned the piano from an early age, he did not initially envisage a professional career as a pianist. His first passions were singing and arranging Georgian folk songs and pop songs. At the age of twelve, he was already performing successfully in local singing competitions; at thirteen, he won the Georgian edition of The Voice. Alongside this, he continued his formal musical training at the Central Paliashvili Music School for Gifted Children and later at the Tbilisi State Conservatoire with Revaz Tavadze. 

A turning point in his pianistic career came in April 2019, when he won First Prize at the International Piano Competition in Vigo, whose jury was chaired by Martha Argerich. In 2021, he received the Hortense Anda Förderpreis at the Concours Géza Anda in Zurich; in the same year, he won both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the Kissinger KlavierOlymp. In March 2023, he achieved another major success at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, where he won Second Prize as well as the Junior Jury Prize, the Best Chamber Music Prize and five of the six Audience Prizes. In 2024, he received the Terrence Judd-Hallé Award, the Musikpreis der deutschen Wirtschaft and the Audience Prize of the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. 

His debut album Meeting my Shadow was released by Alpha Classics in April 2023 and was highly praised by critics. Featuring works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Scriabin and Messiaen, the programme reveals the pianist’s remarkable tonal and stylistic range. A further album, devoted to piano sonatas by Sergei Prokofiev, will be released by Alpha Classics in January 2026. 

As an ECHO Rising Star 2025/26, Giorgi Gigashvili appears in many of Europe’s leading concert halls, including the Barbican Centre in London, Bozar in Brussels, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Cologne Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Palau de la Música Barcelona, Müpa Budapest, Philharmonie Luxembourg and the Vienna Konzerthaus. Further engagements take him to the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. A particular highlight is a recital tour with Lisa Batiashvili across Europe and North America in spring 2026. 

Giorgi Gigashvili combines his career as a classical pianist with a passion for electronic and experimental music. In the programme Georgian on my Mind, he appears with singer Nini Nutsubidze, combining Georgian folk songs with classical works by Chopin, Bartók and other composers. With Serious Music featuring Nikala, he develops a stage experiment at the intersection of classical and electronic music. Both projects, as well as the world premiere of his own work for orchestra, piano and electronics, were presented in 2024 as part of his fellowship at the Beethovenfest Bonn. 

Giorgi Gigashvili studied with Kirill Gerstein in Berlin and Nelson Goerner in Geneva. He is supported by the Lisa Batiashvili Foundation, Bayer Kultur’s stArtacademy and the Orpheum Foundation for the Advancement of Young Artists. From 2023 to 2025, he was a BBC New Generation Artist; for the 2025/26 season, he was selected as an ECHO Rising Star. He has been a Steinway Artist since 2025.