Birdland is proud to announce the return of 15 year-old jazz pianist Beka Gochiashvili to the historic music room on Monday, December 26 at 7pm. Joining Beka will be a Quintet of Jazz Greats, including Buster Williams on bass, Lenny White on drums, Darren Barrett on trumpet and Jaleel Shaw on saxophone.
Beka Gochiashvili was born on March 11, 1996, in Tbilisi, Georgia. By age four he was playing and improvising several jazz-standard compositions. In 2002 his father took him to Zurab Ramishvili, the most prominent jazz piano teacher in Georgia. Mr. Ramishvili was stunned by the child’s incredible talent and his improvisation skills. However, he advised them that at this stage it was essential for Beka to study classical piano and asked his father to enroll him in classical music school. When Beka was 8 years old, he won a competition at the Schwangern Classical Music Festival in Germany, where he performed pieces by Ravel, Mozart and Handel. When Beka turned 9 he went back to Mr. Ramishvili and began jazz piano studies under his direction. 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 unique talent was noticed by Lenny White and Victor Bailey. 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. Both of them highly praised Beka’s unique talent. A few months later, Condoleezza Rice, then Secretary of State – and an accomplished pianist herself, called Beka “one of the best jazz pianists I’ve heard anywhere,” in her remarks at the conclusion of her visit to Georgia.
In 2009, by the efforts of Ms. Rice, Mr. Harrison and John Teft, former US Ambassador in Georgia, Beka and Mr. Ramishvili travelled to New York to participate in auditions at the Juilliard School and at the Manhattan School of Music. In July 2009, at the age of 13, Beka became the youngest winner ever of the Bösendorfer Solo Jazz Piano Competition in Montreaux, Switzerland. In 2011 Beka was selected as one of the semifinalists for the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. Despite the fact that he was the youngest participant in the history of this prestigious piano competition, Beka’s performance was highly praised by the judges and jazz critiques. He was named “a through-and-through bebopper” by Jazz Time Magazine. Currently Beka is a student at pre-college division of the Juilliard School, where he studies jazz piano with Frank Kimbrough and classical piano with Victoria Mushkatkol.
Birdland, 315 West 44 Street, NYC
Tickets are available now by phone: 212-581-3080 or online www.BirdlandJazz.com
$25 cover, $10 food/drink minimum
