Press
Klassik.com - CD review
june 2008
Rising star - International Piano
August 2007
Standing ovation for Dudana
Review daily news
Westdeutsche Zeitung - June 2007
In the Search of Relations
A question of age: for a young person it has to be fiery, passionately, impulsively… as in Tchaikovsky's music. His “Grand Sonata” deserves its name rather due to its extent and the ample immediate representation of major feelings, but is real soulfood for a just-about teen with a lot of talent for the piano. The name of the teen in the Max-Joseph Hall is Dudi Mazamanishivili and she outlines the position of the Russian soul.
The pianist never plays ostentatiously, has a powerful, but never rough strike, graduates dynamically but in a fine way and is always in search of the relations of the different voices with one another. Schumann's “Scenes from Childhood” appealed, that especially the tricky “Träumerei” sounds so natural and tasteful, is a rare event, as it can easily drift off into the sentimental!
Even in Mozart one senses Mazmanishvili's will for presentation. There is no rushing through details. A fact, which benefited Schumann's “Toccata” op. 7, which didn't just rush past in a preposterous over-exited way – Dudi Mazmanishvili showed that great art has always structure. A truly promising discovery!
Tageszeitung
One always has to have style
Interview with the Pianist Dudana Mazmanishvili Dudana Mananishvili is from Tiflis, the capital of Georgia . Her talent was promoted by her art-loving family at a very young age. As a six-year-old she started the music school for the highly-gifted. She initiated her concert career at the age of eight, when she performed Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 15 with the Georgian State Orchestra. As early as at the age of 14 she played the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninov with the Georgian State Symphony. She has been studying piano at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich since 1998 and is now in her second year in the Master Class of Prof. Elisso Wirssaladze.
With public appearances as early as yours, it was probably always clear for you that you wanted to become a musician?
No, initially I didn't know that I wanted to become a pianist – only at the age of 17 or 18, when Professor Elisso Wirssaladze took me on in her class, it became clear for me. I always had a lot of other interests, which, however, in hindsight, can be seen as the source of my interpretations. I wrote a novel, a script, novellas, I painted, had two exhibitions, played chess….And I was serious about everything. Then I wanted to study law or directing and archaeology fascinated me very much, I often went to excavations.
Did this not often have an influence on your willingness to practise?
That might well be the case. I often wanted to give up, because everything became too much. But always, when I was on stage, played and received applause, this gave me motivation for one or two years.
Why did you come exactly to Munich ?
Professor Elisso Wirssaladze teaches at the Conservatory in Moscow – and here at the Munich University for Music and Theatre. I absolutely wanted to study with her. At home she is something like a “national heroine”. Besides, Munich is the city of culture and one can feel very much at ease here.
What was your aim when you came here? More directly: Did you intend to achieve your breakthrough as a “star”- pianist here?
My only goal is and always was to really play well. This is the most difficult thing, for this you have to work really hard. I sometimes think that it is easier, to get ahead and have a “good career”, than to play really well.
What do you think of competitions?
Well, sometimes one can make very good contacts through competitions. Then one prepares new pieces in an intensive way, feels tense regarding a goal, extends one's repertoire. And if one also wins in the end, one sometimes gets the chance to do very good concerts or CD recordings. But I know what you mean. There are pianists, for example, who play wonderfully, are very musical, and have never participated in any competitions or are just not the “competition-winning-type” –and have still made it. On the other hand people win competitions, who will never have a career.
Is there a type of music that you don't like?
Well, yes, rather modern, contemporary music. There are also pieces that I like, with others, it is difficult for me to understand them. By this I don't want to say that this kind of music is bad – it is probably my mistake that I'm not that far yet. But I would like to dedicate more time to contemporary music in the future.
How does one become a good musician?
I believe, one needs to be “faithful” to music, to oneself. One should know what one wants, how to do, to interpret something. And one should not always choose the easiest route, risk something, experience more.
What do think of stars like Vanessa Mae?
To be honest, I do not think much of her, of her style.
Imagine, you were a prospective star – how far would you go to market yourself? Nowadays there really terrible “classic-pop” programs on television…
I would do anything, as long as it is not or does not look tasteless – and as long as I enjoy it. Look, Pavarotti sang with Sting, Monserrat Caballe with Freddie Mercury (the singer of the rock band Queen) – but that was not tasteless …one always has to have style.
"Meisterkonzert" - Leipzig (Germany) - Concert review
june 2008
Dudana Mazmanishvili - Musical America
Junge Meister in New York City - Piano News
August 2006
Die Pianistin Dudana - Für Musik-Entdecker
“…The playing of the enormously charismatic Dudana Mazmanishvili was commanding for its overall largesse…”
International Piano
Extravagant Talents
On Friday the pianist Dudana Mazmanishvili from Georgia played at the Hubertus Hall at the Nymphenburg Castle in Munich . The extremely talented and lively pianist from Tbilisi - numerous times awarded and at present student jewel at the University of Music in Munich was only using Chopin as a warm-up. Certainly, the Sonata in B Minor op. 35 sounded differentiated, with vivid middle notes and even the so often omitted repetition in the 1 st movement. But she really gained momentum in the Toccatas by Schumann and Prokofiev. In Schumann's brilliant C Major illusion the crystalline poignancy was captivating, in Prokofiev's breakneck D Major Toccata the art of shadowing behind the brilliance. Rachmaninoff's Ètude-Tableau op.39, 5 then softened the spirits with the darkest of melancholy keys, E flat minor. A final apotheosis were two preludes and fugues from op. 87 by Dimitrij Schostakovich including the immensely virtuoso Double Fugue in D Minor.
Süddeutsche Zeitung
Rembrandt & the Artist's Touch Steven C. Munson
At a recent concert in Washington, D.C., I had the pleasure of hearing a young pianist from Tbilisi, Georgia, named Dudana Mazmanishvili. Her playing of works by Beethoven, Schubert, Llwellyn, and Balakirev was extraordinary, marked by an exquisitely varied delicacy of touch and a sense of utterly individual authority, and evoking emotions encompassing, it seemed, everything from exultation to despair. But a big part of what made the performance so moving was her passionately physical engagement with the piano.
So great was the impact of this performance that after it I felt I had not really known until then what a piano was. In the crowd on the way out, I happened to overhear a woman who evidently had a similar reaction. But she expressed it differently, remarking to her companion that she wanted “to know the make of that piano.”
Commentary magazine Steven C. Munso
Discipline and Sensitivity
If one term characterizes the piano performance of Dudana Mazmanishvili , born 1980 in Georgia , then it must be discipline. Mazmanishvili never loses herself in sentimentalities, keeps her distance without ever being cool: crystal-clear runs in Chopin's Nocturne. In the B Minor Sonata the powerful beginning is followed by extensively played lyrical passages with a soft, never overflowing sound. The dynamic gradation in Schumann's Toccata is flowing, still very distinct. Energetic the Toccata in D Major by Prokofiev - virtuoso, powerful, still fully playing the softer notes.
Thus, the Hubertus Hall at Nymphenburg Castle witnessed the young pianist manage a rarely heard tightrope walk between disciplined and sound-sensitive performance: absolutely restrained, still soul-depicting. This was rewarded by roaring applause.
Tageszeitung
Canergie Hall - New York concert review
November 2007
Konzertgenuss der besonderen Art
On her way to Canergie Hall 
Review daily news
Grenzland Nachrichten - June 2007
Die Pianistin war der Star des Abends
Die junge Georgierin konzertierte bereits als Achtjährige mit dem Staatsorchester ihres kaukasischen Heimatlandes. Mit erzählerisch- beschaulichem Duktus stellte sie das Motiv des Eingangssatzes zu Rachmaninoffs drittem Klavierkonzert vor, dessen Herkunft aus russischem Volksliedgut der Komponist stets abgestritten hat.
Gleich zu Beginn vervielfacht sich das Tempo der Anschläge. Nicht zuletzt wegen dieser extremen Anschlagdichte rechnet man das Werk aus dem Jahr 1909 zu den schwierigsten Klavierkonzerten.
Mit ihren Variationen und Läufen von wahnwitziger Fingerfertigkeit, entwickelte "Dudi", wie das Programmheft sie liebevoll nennt, im Alleingang eine Dramatik, wie sie das Orchester nicht zu entfachen vermochte. Sie war es, die das Orchester zu vehementem Spiel herausforderte.
Mit einer Etüde Rachmaninoffs als Solistenzugabe führte sie bravourös in emotionale Tiefen, überschüttete das Publikum mit aufpeitschenden Crescendi...
Commentary Magazine
Ruhr Nachrichten - March 2007
Review Dudana Mazmanishvili
Soloist creates the Soul of Music
Enormous Applause for Russian Program of the Northwest German Philharmonics.
The Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonics and the young Georgian pianist Dudi Mazmanishvili enthused the audience at the third symphony concert at the Forum Niederberg with an exclusively Russian Program.
Audiences always held the piano concertos by Rachmaninoff in high esteem. Experts, who used to keep a low profile, are now starting to appreciate the independent qualities of this music. The third Piano Concerto in D Minor however, which premiered in New York in 1909, received instant praise due to its “freshness of inspiration, the clearly outlined and laconic form and the brilliant instrumentation”. Dudi Mazmanishvili, right from the beginning mesmerized with her sound-sensitive, elegiac tone, with which she unisono intoned the vocal theme. She can play straightforwardly and extremely virtuosic, manages to cover the whole range of sound of the grand piano with the opulent sounds of the piano part and the chord figures. She exquisitely created the climaxes, but also listened closely into the orchestra, when her part more is closely interwove with it.
For her it was not just mere virtuosity, but the creation of the “soul” of the music. The orchestra played just as motivated. The pianist thanked the audience for the enormous applause with a virtuoso encore by Liszt.
The applause seemed to find no end.
Westfallen Abendzeitung
Vor knapp sechs Jahren, im Januar 2001, war die 18-jährige Dudana Mazmanishvili mit einem bemerkenswerten Klavierabend im Herkulessaal der Münchner Residenz zu erleben. Jetzt legt die immer noch junge Pianistin, die achtjährig mit dem Georgischen Staatsorchester ihr erstes Mozart-Konzert, mit 14 Jahren Rachmaninows Zweites öffentlich spielte, ihr viel versprechendes Debüt-Album vor. Unter anderem bei Elisso Wirssaladze in München ausgebildet, studiert Dudana Mazmanishvili mittlerweile bei Jerome Rose in New York.
Hochmusikalisch, mit viel Gespür für gutes Timing, bei Rachmaninow mit einem freien, aber nie willkürlichen Umgang mit den Tempi, formt Dudana Mazmanishvili weite Spannungsbögen. Der Klavierklang bleibt immer nobel und ausgeglichen, wirkt - auch dank ausgezeichneter Pedalbehandlung - nie wattiert oder dick. Die Bach-Suite klingt lyrisch verhalten, passagenweise wunderbar intim. In der Sarabande zeigt sie viel Mut zu romantischer Versenkung, ohne sich in Details zu verlieren und die Architektur aus dem Blick zu verlieren. Entsprechend bewältigt die junge Georgierin auch die Chaconne von Bach/Busoni, einen Höhepunkt romantischer Bach-Deutung, überlegen und völlig ohne vordergründige Virtuosität. Von dieser Pianistin sollte man noch einiges hören.
Oswald Beaujean, Bayern 4 Klassik
Piano Performance a Firework of Technical Brilliance
“Masters of Tomorrow” Concert with Dudi Mazmanishvili / Storm of Enthusiasm amongst the Audience.
The Werner-Richter/Dr.Carl-Dörken Trust hosted a piano evening on Sunday evening as part of the concert series “Masters of Tomorrow”. If playing the piano were an Olympic discipline, then the performance of the young Georgian Dudi Mazmanishvili at the Werner-Richter Hall certainly would have secured her a place on the winners' podium. A firework of technical brilliance – cascading runs at lightning speed, torrents of triad motives, wildly piling up chords poured down on the entranced audience.
A stark contrast to the virtuoso acrobatics of the mainly romantic program was the beginning with the famous A Major Sonata by Mozart with its modest theme. The pianist followed the instructions in detail with fine musical poetry. The octaves in the Minor variation were bound perfectly. The themes always stood out clearly from the accompaniment, the tempo of the Turkish March was not disproportionate. The pedal was used sparingly.
“Carnaval” by Schumann, a dance cycle with 21 short episodes, is a brilliant opportunity for pianists, dexterity and talent for rapid changes from exuberant and high-spirited to elegiac dreaminess. Florestan and Eusebius, the gentle and the passionate side of Schumann's self turned into music. A passionate dance was dedicated to Chopin and a virtuoso bravura to Paganini. The listeners tried in breathless suspense to associate the titles with the musical happenings.
After the grand G-Major Sonata by Tchaikovsky with a lot of soul-searching and artistic play and the oriental fantasy Islamey of Balakirew, which Hans von Bülow once called the “most difficult piano piece”, there was a storm of enthusiasm amongst the audience.
A charming Viennese Waltz by the Polish Godowski as an encore calmed the spirits, before all were sent home or to the after-concert buffet for a chat with the artist after the fiery perpetuum mobile of the Prokofiev Toccata.
WESTFALENPOST