Pianist Georgy Tchaidze Releases All-Russian Recording with Honens

Russian pianist Georgy Tchaidze, Prize Laureate of the 2009 Honens International Piano Competition, has just released a new all-Russian recital recording on the Honens label. The album features works by Medtner, Mussorgsky and Prokofiev, all of which Tchaidze performed at his debuts earlier this year at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall (New York), the Glenn Gould Studio (Toronto), Berlin's Konzerthaus, and London's Wigmore Hall. This CD is the 2009 Honens Prize Laureate's second recording on the Honens label.

Naxos of North America Inc. is now the official distributor of Honens label recordings throughout North and South America (physical recordings), and through online music retailers worldwide. This partnership comes after the successful release of four Honens label recordings in August 2011 including Georgy Tchaidze's all-Schubert album and 2006 Honens Prize Laureate Minsoo Sohn's album, which was one of 25 classical recordings lauded in The New York Times Holiday Gift Guide 2011.

Mr. Tchaidze's recording, produced at Canada's Banff Centre, was made possible through the Honens Competition's Artistic & Career Development Program with support and guidance from The Banff Centre's Music & Sound Program and the RBC Foundation.

Russian pianist Georgy Tchaidze is 2009 Prize Laureate of Canada's Honens International Piano Competition. The Telegraph of London commented on the "fine sensibility and perfectly honed technique" displayed at his Wigmore Hall debut in London in March 2012. His Honens win allowed him to bring his artistry beyond Russia for performances throughout Europe and North America for the first time. Last Spring, he also performed at Berlin's Konzerthaus, the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York. His festival performances this year included Canada's Westben, Toronto Summer Music, Ottawa International Chamber Music and France's Piano aux Jacobins. In 2011, he played for the Governor General of Canada at the special invitation of The Glenn Gould Foundation, and that same year performed Rachmaninov's second piano concerto with conductor Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra about which the Ottawa Citizen wrote "commendable clarity ... unusually powerful for a performance of so little ostentation." Mr. Tchaidze is currently touring Canada with the Cecilia String Quartet, First Prizewinner of the 2010 Banff International String Quartet Competition. Tchaidze's two recordings, one of works by Schubert and this all-Russian recital album, are available on the Honens label. Aside from music, he is a film buff-directors Fassbinder, German, Sokurov and Tarkovsky are among his favorites.

Excerpted from Liner Notes:

Georgy Tchaidze in Conversation with Eric Friesen: Georgy Tchaidze has chosen not only an all-Russian program for this recording, but a profoundly Russian one with an excursion into unjustly neglected corners of the repertoire, and something magnificently familiar. The program taken as a whole is like a dense Russian fugue with a counterpoint of conflicting and parallel moods and themes. Although the Medtner and Prokofiev pieces were completed around 1916/1917, just as the old Tsarist regime was collapsing into the abyss, there are dramatic differences between them. On the one hand there is, as Georgy told me, in Medtner's music an "aspiration into the depths of the Russian past," and on the other hand in Prokofiev's Sonata a futuristic "audacious modernism." Then there is the nationalist Mussorgsky (one of "the Five"). There are the contrasting sensibilities of St. Petersburg (Prokofiev) and Moscow (Medtner and Mussorgsky). Woven throughout is The Common inspiration for all of these composers of Russian folklore, literature and art.

Eric Friesen is a veteran broadcaster, writer and speaker on music and culture. He spent much of his life as a network music host and producer for CBC Radio and Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), as well as a network executive for both organizations. For CBC he hosted programs such as Studio Sparks, In Performance, and Onstage at Glenn Gould Studio, as well as the celebrated documentary series, The Concerto According to Pinchas, The Concerto According to Manny and Peter and the Symphony. Since leaving the CBC in 2008, Friesen has been busy serving a wide variety of major cultural organizations in Canada. He is a regular contributor to NUVO magazine and Queen's Quarterly, and is a much sought after public speaker on cultural issues. Friesen serves as director and advisor to a number of cultural and arts organizations, including Roy Thomson Hall and Massey Hall, Kingston WritersFest and Honens.

Canada's Honens International Piano Competition is a leader in discovering and launching the careers of young concert pianists. It searches for 'Complete Artists'-21st century pianists for 21st century audiences. The 2012 Honens Prize Laureate receives the $100,000 Enbridge cash prize and a comprehensive artistic and career development program valued at a half million dollars-the largest award in the world of international music competitions.

The Semifinals and Finals of the Seventh Honens International Piano Competition take place in Calgary from 17 to 26 October 2012. The Competition is presented by Nexen Inc.; Lead Partners are CNOOC Canada Inc., Enbridge Inc., Statoil, TD Bank and TransAlta; Supporting Partners are Norton Rose Canada LLP and RBC Foundation. Principle Partners are ARC Financial, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Deluxe Design Group, EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts, Fazioli / Michael Lipnicki Fine Pianos, Steinway & Sons / Steinway Pianos of Calgary and WAX Partnership Inc.; Program Partners are The Banff Centre, Bantrel Co., Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc., Masters Gallery and Mawer Investment Management Ltd; Other Competition Partners are: Avenue Magazine, Calgary Herald, CBC Radio 2, CKUA, CTV Calgary, ecentricarts inc., Husky Energy, Hôtel Le Germain Calgary, McCarthy Tétrault LLP, Medici.tv, Pattison Outdoor Advertising, Red Tree Catering, Renaissance Wine Merchants Ltd, Teatro Ristorante and Total E&P Canada Ltd. Supporters and Suppliers are Anne Paterson's Flowers, Calgary Board of Education, Calgary Public Library, Douglas Cridland Interior Design, RPM Piano Moving and Victor Micahel's Florist Ltd. Honens also thanks public and foundation partners Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Alberta Lottery Fund, Canadian Heritage, Calgary Arts Development Authority / City of Calgary, Calgary 2012 / Cultural Capital of Canada, The Calgary Foundation and the Rozsa Foundation.

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