User:Jazz Aficionado

Beka Gochiashvili

Biography written by Kakha Tolordava*

Beka Gochiashvili, the youngest winner of the Montreux Jazz Piano Competition was born in Tbilisi, Georgia on March 11, 1996. He was just two and a half years old when Valeri, his father told him he would give him back his pacifier if he could play some of Scott Joplin’s Ragtime tunes. Beka’s response was a sad and confused look in return. Valeri took the pacifier and went into another room to run some errands. Just minutes later, he heard the sounds of the requested tunes being played on the piano. Valeri ran back to the room, and he could not believe what was happening. Remarkably, it was Beka, who then got his pacifier back as a reward. A few months later, his rubber pacifier was quickly replaced by a much more joyous calming toy for him, a piano.

Beka was three years old when he watched Standards II by Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette - the video recording that triggered his devotion and passion for this sophisticated trio and their performance style.

By age four, Beka was playing several piano compositions already. In 2002 Valeri took him to Zurab Ramishvili, the most prominent jazz piano professor in Georgia. The child’s ability to play a few complicated jazz compositions impressed him. Notwithstanding, he advised them to enroll Beka in classical music classes at a school headed by Tengiz Chitaishvili.

By age eight, Beka won a competition at the Schwaigern Classical Music Festival in Germany, where he performed pieces by Ravel, Mozart and Handel.

By age nine, Beka began jazz studies under the direction of Zurab Ramishvili. A year later, he was already playing at various jazz clubs in Tbilisi.

In 2007, Beka participated in Saulkrasti Jazz Festival in Latvia, where his performance skills were highly assessed by Lenny White and Victor Bailey. In the same year he played at the 10th International Festival “Georgians Play Jazz” held in the great hall of Tbilisi State Conservatory.

In April 2008, the US Embassy in Tbilisi hosted two State Department sponsored cultural envoys – jazz pianist Dan Tepfer and Joel Harrison, Artistic Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Pianists Association, who performed with Beka. Both of them highly praised Beka’s unique talent.

“Beka is one of the best jazz pianists I’ve heard anywhere,” said Condoleezza Rice, then Secretary of State and an accomplished pianist herself, in her remarks at the conclusion of her visit to Georgia in July 2008.

By the efforts of Ms. Rice, Mr. Harrison and John Teft, former US Ambassador in Georgia, Beka and Mr. Ramishvili travelled to New York in 2008 to participate in auditions at the Juilliard School and at the Manhattan School of Music. Not surprisingly, he was accepted in both schools.

In July 2009, Beka won Montreux Jazz Piano Competition, Switzerland.

Numerous diplomas were awarded to Beka including diploma for participation in Georgian-German Festival for Young Musicians-Performers Tbilisi-2003, diploma for participation in a concert (Children’s Album) dedicated to 165th anniversary of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, diploma for participation in an international festival held in Germany in 2004.

In 2009, the Development and Reforms Fund of Georgia awarded Beka a full scholarship for studies at the pre-college division of the Juilliard School, where he takes jazz piano classes with Frank Kimbrough and classical piano classes with Victoria Mushkatkol. Concurrently he attends the Professional Performing Arts School in New York, NY.

''*Kakha Tolordava is jazz writer in Tbilisi, Georgia and the author of a book - Briefly Close: Conversation in Jazz, published by Bakur Sulakauri Publishing (ISBN 978-9941-15-100-2). See his article on Beka featured in Hot Chocolate magazine in Georgian language .''