Dear friends,
I hope this finds you doing well! We currently seem to be at an important turning point in the present crisis, with a promising acceleration in immunization rates. Despite this, COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc around the world, and we must hope that global efforts to contain the pandemic will very soon catch up with the spread of this virus.
The recent progress in vaccinations has also meant an imminent return to regular live concerts. My schedule for the rest of the year has started to fill up, and you can find dates for upcoming performances in the US, Europe, and Japan on my website. Many more dates for 2021 and 2022 will be added in the next few weeks, so please watch this space!
I’ve also had much exciting news to share from the last couple of months. Here are some highlights:
LIMELIGHT RECORDING OF THE MONTH
My recent album of piano music by York Bowen has continued to receive much critical acclaim, including being selected by Limelight as their Recording of the Month:
“Namoradze captures the magic and romance of these miniature masterpieces to perfection… Tremendous fun to listen to, and no doubt to play—providing you’re equipped with a technique such as the present performer’s!”—Will Yeoman
PRESTO TO CLASSICAL EDITOR’S CHOICE
The disc was also tapped as a potential record of the year in Presto Classical:
“It’s early days, but I’ve already earmarked this young Georgian pianist’s dazzling debut disc as a potential Recording of the Year: his sheer technical brilliance will make you catch your breath time and again, but he’s also a born story-teller.”—Katherine Cooper
MUSICAL AMERICA’S NEW ARTIST OF THE MONTH
In February I was chosen as the New Artist of the Month in Musical America, with Clive Paget remarking that “it’s easy to agree with Emanuel Ax’s comment that Namoradze, a true Renaissance man, is ‘set to become one of the truly important artists of his generation.’”
BOOK PUBLICATION WITH SPRINGER
I’m incredibly honored to share that I have signed a book deal with Springer, one of the world’s leading academic publishers, for the publication of my doctoral dissertation as a monograph. The work, a study of macroharmony in Ligeti’s late piano etudes through the lens of graphical-statistical analysis, will appear in the Computational Music Sciences series.
INTERVIEWS AND FEATURES
I was recently the subject of a pair of features by Holly Harris in Ludwig Van Toronto and Winnipeg Free Press. For features in other languages, here’s a profile about me on Georgian TV, and Hungarian-speakers can also listen to a recent interview in Klasszik Rádió.
MIND AND MINDFULNESS
Finally, on a somewhat different wavelength: I continue to pursue my postgraduate studies at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London. In conjunction with studying the effects of mindfulness and mental training on musical practice and performance—and my developing of resources informed by these approaches for musicians—I underwent training and was recently credentialed as a certified meditation and mindfulness teacher.
As life begins to return to normal in some parts of the world, let’s keep our fingers crossed that global case numbers will soon start to abate significantly as more people get immunized. Stay well and safe, and now that concert life is also recovering I very much hope that our paths might cross during my upcoming tours!
Kind regards,
Nicolas
Reel: Bowen’s Fragments from Hans Andersen and Studies
Watch the promo reel for my latest album on the Hyperion label, where I discuss Bowen’s oeuvre and the pieces on the disc.
Webinar: Tackling New Repertoire
In this webinar for tonebase I discuss approaches to learning music, with a particular focus on mental practice techniques.