Dubbed “a major artist” by the Miami Herald and a “quiet maverick” by the Daily Telegraph, pianist Alexander Korsantia has been praised for the “clarity of his technique, richly varied tone and dynamic phrasing” (Baltimore Sun), and a “piano technique where difficulties simply do not exist” (Calgary Sun). The Boston Globe found his interpretation of Pictures of an Exhibition to be “a performance that could annihilate all others one has heard.” And the Birmingham Post gushed that “his intensely responsive reading was shot through with a vein of constant fantasy, whether musing or mercurial.” Ever since winning the First Prize and Gold Medal of the Artur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition and the First Prize at the Sidney International Piano Competition, Korsantia’s career has taken him to many of the world’s major concert halls, collaborating with renowned conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Christoph Eschenbach, and Paavo Jarvi and orchestras as the Chicago Symphony, Kirov Orchestra and Israel Philharmonic.
Season 2007/08 brings him to the Pacific Symphony, Omaha and Elgin symphonies following a summer stint with the Israel Philharmonic under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos where he performed Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and the 2nd Brahms Piano Concerto nine times. In Europe he is heard on tour with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, performing Chopin’s 2nd Piano Concerto in France and Germany, as well as with the Noeburg Chamber Orchestra across Germany. He is also scheduled to give recitals at the Festival Piano Jacobins in Toulouse, and in Calgary, Lodz, and his hometown, Tbilisi, Georgia.
The highlights of the 2004-2006 seasons were performances of Prokofiev’s Third Concerto and Mozart B flat major Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto with RAI Orchestra in Turin, the Dvorak Concerto with the Jerusalem Symphony and Oslo Philharmonic and the Stravinsky Concerto with the Israel Chamber Orchestra, Vancouver, Omaha, Oregon, Louisville Symphony Orchestras and a tour throughout Italy with the Georgian State Symphony.
Other noteworthy engagements have included a televised performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg; performances at the Stresa Festival in Italy under the baton of Yuri Bashmet; concerts at the Newport, Tanglewood, Vancouver, Gilmore festivals; with the symphony orchestras of Louisville, Brazil, Bogota, Jerusalem and the City of Birmingham, the Georgian State Orchestra, the Kirov Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra and others. He has also participated in a United States recital tour with renowned violinist Vadim Repin.
A veritable superstar in his country of birth, he performed at the inauguration of Georgian President Saakashvili in 2004, a year after National TV released a full-length documentary about him. In 1999, he was awarded one of the most prestigious national awards, the Medal of Honor, bestowed on him by then-President, Eduard Shevardnadze.
Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Alexander Korsantia began his musical studies at an early age. Among his mentors are his mother, Sventlana Korsantia and Tengiz Amiredjibi, Georgia’s foremost piano instructor. In 1992, he moved his family to the United States and joined the famed piano studio of fellow Georgian, Alexander Toradze, at Indiana University. Korsantia resides in Boston where he is a Professor of Piano on the faculty of the New England Conservatory.
Sasha joined A Far Cry as piano soloist on the following concerts:
28 January 2008 – St. Paul’s Church (Brookline, MA) 29 January 2008 – First Church in Cambridge (Cambridge, MA) 1 February 2008 – Cochran Chapel at Phillips Academy (Andover, MA)
