Concert Review: David Aladashvili – A Georgian Evening at Carnegie Hall

On February 8, 2010, I had the pleasure to be invited by the very personable 19-year-old Georgian pianist David Aladashvili to his debut performance at Carnegie Hall’s renowned Weill Recital Hall. Hailed by the Georgian Association in the United States as a “rising star of Georgian culture,” his debut was an opportunity to showcase his fresh talent and to strengthen the ties within New York’s Georgian community.

The Weill Recital Hall was filled with young and old music lovers of mostly (but not exclusively) Georgian heritage — an attentive and very supportive audience for the young performer who had been lauded as a “sensitive virtuoso born for the stage” in the program notes.

Unfortunately, David’s parents were not able to attend personally, but they were able to listen to parts of David’s performance via a friend’s cell phone. David’s Juilliard teacher, Mr. Jerome Lowenthal, as well as some of David’s personal friends, represented the Juilliard community that night.

David was born in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1990. At age 11, he began to study piano with Leila Mumladze; at 15, he was accepted into the prestigious Tbilisi Special Music School, where he studied with Daredjan Tsintsadze. Then, in 2005, he received Georgia’s Presidential Scholarship Award for Piano Performance, allowing him to move to New York City to pursue his studies at the Juilliard Pre-College Division in 2007 with Ms. Victoria Mushkatkol. He now studies as a Juilliard School scholarship recipient with Jerome Lowenthal.

I first met David at the Juilliard cafeteria, more than a year prior to his debut at Weill Recital Hall. Before long, we were involved in a friendly conversation about his ideas and views on piano performance, his love for classical music, and his education and experiences in his native Georgia. He also told me how life in New York and at the Juilliard School compared to Georgia.

On many occasions the very outgoing David shared his exceptional joy for piano playing with me in Juilliard practice rooms as well as at a family dinner at my house and his teacher Jerome Lowenthal’s private lessons and studio class. It is thanks to David that I was able to experience Jerome Lowenthal’s brilliant teaching firsthand.

Even on the day before his debut concert, I sat in for a little while he rehearsed a selection of Schumann’s “Kinderszenen.” He played beautifully and with great understanding of the piece, which he wanted to dedicate to the 21-year-old Georgian luger who had met his tragic death in the qualification round for the Olympic games just days before.

Article Author: Ilona Oltuski

Ilona Oltuski was born in Germany, where she studied art history and published her doctorate about the Bezalel art movement. She discovered her penchant for writing again much later, through another interest of hers, the piano. …

Visit Ilona Oltuski's author page — Ilona Oltuski's Blog