Why Artist and Activist Khatia Buniatishvili Reigns Supreme
Khatia Buniatishvili. Photo credit: Gavin Evans Sony Classical
Khatia Buniatishvili is a French-Georgian concert pianist who started playing the piano when she was just three years old. She’s a natural born talent who gave her first concert with Tbilisi Chamber Orchestra when she was six — the age when most kids are just learning to read!
Here’s four things you may not know about Khatia, but should:
She’s an artist and an activist. Buniatishvili performed at “To Russia with Love,” a concert in Berlin to raise awareness of the violation of human rights in Russia and the United Nations’ 70th Anniversary Humanitarian Concert in Geneva which benefited Syrian refugees. She also performed at the Global Citizen Festival at the start of the G20 Summit in Hamburg back in 2017.
She just released a new record. The album, produced by Sony Music, is 90 minutes of beautiful Schubert renditions. Khatia goes for a softer focus than is often the case on his B-flat Piano Sonata, and her approach makes for a refreshing change from the usual assault. Her piano sings and the Scherzo is almost Mendelssohnian in its fleetness of foot. The 4 Impromptus, too, are played with delicacy and great tenderness.
Franz Liszt is one of her heroes. Liszt inspired Khatia to venture into the world of discography. Liszt is constantly pushing back the boundaries of what is possible. He innovates and is generous, bringing together popular and academic styles, the profane and sacred, nature and poetry – he transcends whatever he touches.
She’s received glowing praise. French journalist Olivier Bellamy said this: “Khatia Buniatishvili, shining pianist at the height of her abilities, came into this world in a shower of light during the summer solstice. On a human level, she is attracted more to equinoxes, being smitten by justice and seeking day and night in equal share. By lifting one’s eyes skywards one might notice her playing hide-and-seek with either Venus or Mercury. The cosmos is her garden and it is in its movement that she feels alive, astride a comet.”
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