About the Artist Pianist Edisher Savitski is an Associate Professor at The University of Alabama School of Music and an Artistic Director of Toradze International Music Festival. As a clinician, he regularly conducts master classes throughout the USA, Europe and China. He has enjoyed critical acclaim throughout his career: “As each of Savitski’s convulsive trills and ominous chords would hang in the air, it became clearer that indeed something special was happening. We will be lucky to hear Scriabin played anywhere near this powerfully any time soon” (Jack Walton, South Bend Tribune). “The piano of Edisher Savitski prays, laments and also makes joyful sounds; this amazing Georgian simply takes off to the sky!” (Hanuh Ron, Yediot Akhronot, Israel). Dr. Edisher Savitski has been performing at prestigious venues worldwide. To name a few: Carnegie Zankel Hall and Carnegie Weill Hall, New York; Wigmore Hall, London; Great Hall of Mozarteum, Salzburg, Austria; Mariinsky Theater and Concert Hall, St. Petersburg, Russia; Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy; as well as other venues in the USA, Canada, Germany, Georgia, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Israel, Austria, Morocco, China, Japan and New Zealand. He has performed at major music festivals such as the Salzburg Festival (Austria); the Gilmore Keyboard Festival and Ravinia Festival (USA); the Ruhr Festival (Germany); the Ravenna Festival, Stresa Festival, Maggio Musicale Festival in Florence, and MITO Festival (Italy); and the Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky festivals through the Pittsburgh Symphony. His performances have also been heard in Grande Auditorio at Temporada Gulbenkian de Musica in Lisbon, Portugal; at Teatro la Fenice in Venice; Italy; at Stadt-Casino Musiksaal in Basel, Switzerland; at Salle Cortot in Paris, France; at the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago; and at Segerstrom Hall in California. In November 2007, Dr. Savitski became first pianist who performed in an unprecedented live performance/press conference from his home in South Bend, Indiana, on a Yamaha Disklavier piano that was connected to another Disklavier piano in the Recital Hall of Yamaha Artist Services International in New York City. He is a Yamaha Artist. Edisher Savitski is the first prize winner of both the Third International Piano-E-Competition in 2006 and the Hilton Head International Piano Competition in 2001, and took top prizes at the First International Piano-E-Competition in Minneapolis and the William S. Byrd International Piano Competition in Michigan. In 2007, Savitski’s CD was released on Schubert Club’s Ten Thousand Lakes label. His performances are frequently broadcast on live TV and radio throughout Europe and the USA. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Dr. Edisher Savitski studied in the Central Music School under Maya Beridze and in the Tbilisi State Conservatory under professor Nana Khubutia. During this time, he became a prizewinner of the international charity program “New Names”, Russia, and won a collaborative piano competition arranged at the Tbilisi State Conservatory. In 1998, he joined the renowned Alexander Toradze Piano Studio at the Indiana University South Bend, where he earned a Master of Music degree and Artist diploma and was awarded the Performers Certificate. In Spring 2013, he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in performance from Michigan State University.