Nina Kavtaradze (Denmark)

At the age of six, Nina Kavtaradze began studies at the Moscow Conservatory's Central Music School, established in 1932 for gifted children. Ms. Kavtaradze, who was born in Moscow, was admitted as at the age of 19 to the class of Lev Oborin at the Moscow Conservatory, who later remarked that "she is a musician who possesses talent of the very highest order, with considerable artistic depth and brilliant individuality."

Ms. Kavtaradze has given solo concerts all over the former Soviet Union, the USA and in most European countries. She has also played around 50 concerts with orchestra with numerous conductors, including Yuri Ahronovitch, Sir Charles Groves, Leif Segerstam, Jorma Panula, Kurt Sanderling, Moshe Atzmon and Mariss Jansons. In addition, she has performed chamber music with artists such as Jean-Pierre Rampal, Felix Ayo, Liana Isakadze and Victor Pikaizen, and since 1986, she has performed extensively in a duo with Erling Blöndal Bengtsson.

Ms. Kavtaradze's vast repertoire comprises both the familiar and the lesser known. She has recorded the complete works for piano of Richard Wagner and Modest Mussorgsky. In addition, she edited Wagner's works, four of which were not previously published, for www.sheetmusicnow.com. The Wagner recording was chosen in 2000 as one of the world's top 10 piano CDs by the prestigious German magazine Neue Musikzeitung (founded by Robert Schumann). Danish music magazine High Fidelity and WAA Music Magazine of the Netherlands also gave the CD accolades, praising Ms. Kavtaradze's interpretation of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in particular. Other recordings include her recording of Herman D. Koppels Piano Concerto No. 3, which won the Danish Music Awards in 2004 shortly after she performed it with great success in St. Petersburg with the St. Petersburg Hermitage Orchestra.

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