NEW YORK (AP) — Khatia Buniatishvili has been one of the most well-known classical musicians for more than a decade, but she prefers to keep the chatter about her celebrity buried beneath the crescendo of her music and charismatic performances. “If I start to talk about my charisma, I think it might be the end. It’s like the peak of narcissism, right?” Buniatishvili said bashfully in a recent interview.
But it’s her command of the stage, combined with her expressive performance energy and glamourous exterior that has made her a household name in classical music. The pianist, born in the country of Georgia, along with a new generation of artists like French violinist Esther Abrami, Nigerian opera singer and even pop superstar a classically trained flutist, are helping remove the elitist stigma often attached to the genre and are attracting millennial and Gen Z audiences. “I’m the happiest person when I hear that .
.. young people, it’s the movement of life,” said Buniatishvili, a two-time winner of Germany’s top award for classical performers, the Opus Klassik.
“You can bring new life to them — to composers — thanks to these young people who are listening to it. I think it’s the major achievement you might have in life.” The 37-year-old French-Georgian, who has collaborated with major mainstream artists like Coldplay and released her sixth solo album Friday, “Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos.
20 & 23” with chamber orchestra. Buniatishvili, who first.
