The concerts held in Batumi on August 25 and 26, 2022 presented an exceptionally diverse programme of works by internationally celebrated composers. Each piece had been specially arranged by the soloists themselves: Kathy Mahan (piano, USA) and Sabine Grofmeyer (clarinet, Germany). Audiences were treated to entirely fresh interpretations of beloved works, all of which were received with enthusiastic and prolonged applause.
The Tbilisi concerts were no less distinguished in their artistic ambition. On September 17, 2022, Gloria Campaner's original project "Astor" — conceived as a tribute to the centenary of Astor Piazzolla — received its Georgian premiere. The trio featured Alessandro Carbonare (clarinet), Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi (bandoneon), and Gloria Campaner (piano).
The festival welcomed world-renowned author and music critic Alessandro Baricco as a special guest.
On September 18, works by Antonio Vivaldi were performed by Andrés Gabetta, who closed the evening together with Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi and "Virtuosi of Georgia" in a performance of "The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires."
To mark the jubilee occasion, the book "Celebration of Music" was published, offering readers a deeper understanding of Liana Isakadze's artistry, biography, and inner world.
Liana Isakadze became a musician at the age of three, teaching herself both piano and composition entirely on her own. The violin came to her by pure chance: on the day seven-year-old Liana was due to take her piano entrance examination, she fell ill, and a week later found herself holding a violin instead. She became a student of Professor Leo Shiukashvili.
Within three months she was already performing before audiences. At nine, the State Orchestra accompanied her; at ten, she gave her first solo recital. That same year she was invited — without competition — to an international festival in Moscow, where she performed a full professional programme to great acclaim. The jury was chaired by David Oistrakh.
At twelve she won first prize at the Transcaucasian Violin Competition. At fourteen, admitted as an exceptional case to the All-Union Musicians' Competition, she was awarded second prize. At Oistrakh's insistence, she completed the Tbilisi Central Music School a year ahead of schedule and was admitted without examination to the Moscow State Conservatory into Oistrakh's own class. In 1974, in Amsterdam, on the eve of a concert, the great musician David Oistrakh passed away unexpectedly.
Archive footage of Liana Isakadze recorded in the 1960s, preserved in the "Golden Fund" of Georgian Public Broadcasting.
In 1965, at the age of eighteen, Liana won the Grand Prix and first prize at the Marguerite Long – Jacques Thibaud International Violin Competition in Paris. In 1970 she became a laureate of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (third prize) and was awarded a special prize for the finest performance of the Sibelius Concerto. From 1970 to 1994, Liana Isakadze served as soloist with the Moscow State Philharmonic, touring extensively throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia.
From 1964 to 1981 she played on a Stradivarius violin, entrusted to her as a singular exception by the State Collection of Instruments in Moscow. Since 1965, as both soloist and conductor, she has performed in the most prestigious concert halls of Europe and at renowned international festivals alongside celebrated orchestras and conductors.
Telemuseum – Liana Isakadze, archival recording from the 1960s.
In 1988 a festival dedicated entirely to Liana Isakadze was held in Vienna. Her chamber partners included Gidon Kremer, Maxim Vengerov, Justus Frantz, Grigory Zhislin, Igor Oistrakh, Arto Noras, Ivan Monighetti, and Natalia Gutman, among others. Numerous Georgian, Russian, and German composers have dedicated original works to her.
In 2009, the leading German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung released a five-CD album entitled "Violinists of the Century," in which Liana Isakadze appears alongside twenty outstanding musicians. She is also included in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of 2,000 Outstanding Musicians of the Twentieth Century, published in 2002. In 2001, a star of honour was unveiled in front of the Tbilisi Philharmonic in her name. In 1998 she served as jury chairperson of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. (see source)
Liana Isakadze passed away on July 5, 2024, at the age of 77. She is buried at the Pantheon of Writers and Public Figures on Mtatsminda Hill in Tbilisi.
In 1981, the Georgian State Chamber Orchestra invited Liana Isakadze to serve as its Artistic Director and subsequently as Principal Conductor. Following the orchestra's triumphant debut under her baton, the ensemble rose to become one of the world's leading chamber orchestras.
Liana Isakadze performing at the festival "Musicians in Jest." Recording from 1985.
From 1982 onwards, the orchestra under her direction toured Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australia. It holds numerous recordings on the Melodiya label (Moscow) and the Orfeo label (Munich).
In 2000, with a newly assembled ensemble, Liana Isakadze undertook a unique concert pilgrimage — "A Pilgrimage from Georgia through Europe to Jerusalem" — with performances in Bodbe (Georgia), Eichstätt (Germany), Venice, Rome, Athens, Ephesus, and Istanbul, culminating in a final concert in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday.
In 2009, at the invitation of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Liana Isakadze founded the South and East European Youth Chamber Orchestra in Berlin. She also assembled the ensemble-orchestra "Facebook Virtuosi" from outstanding musicians across her international network, which gave its debut performances in Batumi in August 2011.
Any attempt to explain why all of this exists is foolish. God wove into nature not explanation, but love.
***
O God, You seem to have withdrawn from mankind. And yet everything depends upon You. You are great in Your solitude — but even greater in Your closeness to man.
Only that person may truly be called human who remains a representative of the higher world in every circumstance of life, with no dividing wall between the soul and the eyes.
I seek a life in which the only cause of all things is love. I am entirely alone here, for only my feelings protect me — and that is not enough. Perhaps feelings deceive, but behind them lie heart and purity. On your side stand reason and language; on mine — the heart.
Tears help us most of all. When something is lacking, tears are always ready to fill that absence. They compel us to love and to rejoice with the same tenderness with which they caress the cheek.
What a liberating force the feeling of love possesses. What a crime we commit when we subject it to the mind — which is neither as just nor as pure as the love it has enslaved. Do not enslave love to the mind.
***
How little we are truly capable of knowing in this world — and if we know anything at all, it is only our own manifold desires and feelings. Without a teacher, we are utterly helpless. God forbid we should trust in the perfection of our own intellect — for at that very moment, falsehood begins to flourish.
***
To exist and to be free — these are irreconcilable notions. If you wish to exist and take pleasure in the world, be a servant and live by trivialities. Choose: the soaring aspiration of creation — or a mouth crawling through dust.
The purity of another human being is your refuge. Seek it, and life will hold no limits for you.
***
We are witnesses to the triumph of the arrogant, the self-centred, the self-assured. As a person begins to know God, he remains a slave to himself — but once he truly comes to know God, he becomes master of himself.
Death is the messenger of truth and freedom; it dissolves evil and reduces Satan to a mirage. Only death reveals the true worth of a human being.
Music is the axis of all the arts. A genuine connoisseur therefore perceives music within every form of artistic expression. For spirituality is the art of mystery — and it too requires the capacity to listen.
A true musician can help the listener discover an unrevealed dimension of their own self — presenting before them the entire spectrum of life's experience, from the heights of exhilarating joy to the depths of overwhelming tragedy.
"A particular enchantment of Liana's creative work is that alongside great pain it holds both celebration and triumph. Here is the full diversity, richness, and beauty of her gift — how it embraces the world, how profoundly it opens the gateway to her mysteries..."
"From time to time, nature gives rise to individual wonders — exceptional human beings. Liana Isakadze is one such wonder."
Liana Isakadze's work is one of profound religious contemplation and spiritual depth. In its elevated poetic vision and absolute sincerity, it stands without equal among works of its kind in the world.
Classical music with Liana Isakadze