Nino Jvania

Pianist, musicologist, PhD, associate professor at Vano Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire 

Nino Jvania is celebrated for her “consistently compelling performance, an ideal combination of precise touch, choreographic flair, and calm, keen concentration” (Boston Globe, USA) and hailed as “the Snow Queen of New Music” (Westfälischen Nachrichten, Germany). A graduate of the Tbilisi Conservatoire, she furthered her studies at the R. Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. Her deep interest in contemporary music led her to participate in multiple Stockhausen Courses in Germany and to achieve a prize-winning performance at the Orléans International Piano Competition of 20th Century Music in France. She was awarded grants from DAAD, the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, and the International Ensemble Modern Academy.

Nino’s scholarly pursuits reflect her deep dedication to contemporary music. Her doctoral dissertation examines the piano works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, with whom she had the opportunity to work; Stockhausen himself included her among his recommended interpreters. She has also authored a monograph on contemporary piano performance.
 
As an educator, Nino’s students regularly participate in the “Erasmus+” exchange program and receive prizes in national and international competitions. Her Contemporary Music Student Ensemble premieres works by Georgian composers and introduces Georgian audiences to pieces by European and American contemporary composers. She has delivered masterclasses and public lectures at institutions including conservatories and music academies in Helsinki, Siena, Budapest, Aarhus, Oslo, Riga, Aveiro, Birmingham, and Poznan. In 2022, her innovative teaching practice, “How the Pandemic Inspired Us to Make Music for and in Zoom,” was recognised in the PROFFORMANCE International Teacher Award Call 2021/22, where she was invited to speak on innovative teaching.

Nino frequently appears as a guest artist and faculty member at festivals and courses, including the NEC Summer Institute for Contemporary Piano Performance (Boston), Encuentros (Buenos Aires), Stockhausen International Symposium (Kyiv), Young Euro Classics (Berlin), Close Encounters (Switzerland), NovemberFest (Birmingham), Delft Chamber Music Festival (Netherlands), and Tsinandali Festival (Georgia).

A co-founder of the Kontrapunkt and Alla Kontrapunkt festivals in Tbilisi, she also founded the New Music Student Ensemble of the Tbilisi Conservatoire and the Contemporary Music Ensemble Georgia Modern. From 2010 to 2014, she was a visiting professor at the New England Conservatory and New York University, with guest lectures at Harvard and Tufts.

As a soloist, member of the Piano Duo Zhvaniasisters, and of the Georgia Modern ensemble, Nino performs internationally in prestigious venues like Paris’s Salle Cortot, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Boston’s Jordan Hall, New York’s Merkin Hall, Düsseldorf’s Tonhalle, the State Philharmonic Hall in Baku, etc. 

As a music journalist, Nino Jvania has contributed to the classical music radio station MUZA and the Georgian Public Broadcaster, where she anchored the annual broadcasts of the Vienna New Year’s Concert 2015-2024. Since 2018, she has also written program notes for the prestigious Tsinandali Festival.

Between 2019 and 2022, she led a research project financed by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, collaborating with composer Eka Chabashvili and pianist Tamar Zhvania on the first artistic research initiative in Georgia. The resulting book and DVD, “Artistic Research: Philosophy and Practice”, was published in February 2022. In 2024, Nino’s collection of essays, “Mekomokons, or Zuihitsu”, was a winner of the literary competition “Become an Author of the Bestseller 2024” by Palitra L Publishing House. As part of the Zhvania Singing Family, she has appeared in multiple TV shows and documentaries.

Since 2024, Nino has been active as a social activist, serving as a member of the public initiatives Observers and Culture for Democracy.