Josef Bardanashvili

The competitors can choose to play this obligatory piece in either the First or Second Stage in the Competition.

Josef Bardanashvili was born in 1948, Batumi, Georgia. He is a composer of stage, orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal, and piano works that have been performed throughout Europe and in the USA.

Mr. Bardanashvili studied with Aleksandr Shaverzashvili at the Music Academy in Tbilisi, where he graduated with a DMus in composition in 1976.

Among his honors are the title of Honored Artist of Georgia (1988), the Paliashvili Award (1997), the ACUM Composer of the Year Prize (1998), the Margalit Prize (1999, for Dybbuk [incidental music]), the Award of the Israeli Prime Minister (2000),  the ACUM Mifal Chaim Prize for Life Achievement (2002), Israel Theater  Music Oscar (2003) and the ACUM prize, ''Composer of the Year'' in 2004. 

Many leading conductors (Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, Lior Shambadal, Shlomo Mintz, Djansug Kachidze, Gisele Ben-Dor, Uri Segal, Gabor Hollerung, Zsolt Nagy, Steven Sloan), ensembles, orchestras, and soloists have performed his music throughout Georgia and Israel as well as in Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, the UK, and the USA.

He is also active in other positions. He served as director of the Music College in Batumi from 1986-91 and served as the Deputy Culture Minister of the autonomous region Adjaria in Georgia in 1993-94. He taught at the Camera Obscura College in 1998-99 and at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv University from 1998-2000.

Since 1995, he has lived in Israel. In addition to his activities as a composer, he was the Musical  Director of  the  International  Biennial for Contemporary  Music "Tempus  Fugit"  in  2002 and 2004. He has also composed much music for film and theater, and in addition, is a painter who has exhibited his works in both Georgia and Israel.

Previous works commissioned for the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competitions