who is Khatia Buniatishvili, the virtuoso and media pianist present on the jury?

In terms of competitions, Khatia Buniatishvili knows especially those international piano players. And in particular the Arthur-Rubinstein in Tel Aviv, where she won a third prize in 2008. This time she ventures into a competition of a different kind, since she joins the most glittery meeting of French television, jury side. Alongside Sylvie Vartan, Marie-José Pérec or Cristina Cordula, the 37-year-old Franco-Georgian will be responsible, next Saturday, for appreciating the respective beauty of the thirty candidates from Miss France .

A first for the TF1 competition, which rather invites popular singers, actors, athletes or former Misses. But Khatia Buniatishvili is not – no longer – a classical artist like the others. His notoriety goes beyond concert halls. Magazines like to paint her portrait or have her pose next to her instrument. And the small screen reminds her regularly, since her appearance seven years ago in “Le Petit Journal” by Yann Barthès, where she earned the effective nickname “Beyoncé of the piano”.

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“I am double”

We subsequently saw her scrambling with Yann Moix in “On n'est pas couch”, on France 2. Or last month, a real stage beast, playing the piano backwards in “C à vous”. Like her friend the violinist Renaud Capuçon, the public service also invites her to embody great music during heritage events, like the Paris concert on July 14 or, more recently, the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris . She performed a famous piece there, the Adagio du Oboe Concerto in D minor by Marcello, transcribed by Bach.

Star pianist and star of pianists, courted by television when so many other talented artists never pass through its doors, Khatia Buniatishvili has decided not to choose. She plays under the direction of great conductors, shares the stage with legends like the late Ivry Gitlis and, at the same time, puts herself on stage on Instagram for her communication. We also saw her on Tiktok.

« I am double, like Schumann's Eusebius and Florestan! I am spontaneous and I love people, but I am also buried in the heart of the piano, without seeking effect »she assured Figaroreferring to the Carnaval by Schumann, where the dreamer Eusebius and the tempestuous Florestan embody two different musical styles.

We almost forget that Buniatishvili is among the most gifted virtuosos of his generation. Born just before the fall of the USSR in a Georgia ready to go up in flames, she learned the piano early under the watchful eye of her mother, a former music education teacher. His father is an electrical engineer. She continued her musical training in Vienna, with the Frenchman Michel Sogny, whose teaching promotes ” pleasure ” to play and “emotion”. From there, this assumed expressiveness of the pianist? The young woman, who places Martha Argerich high, also studied with the Austrian Oleg Maisenberg.

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In the spotlight

In France, the general public discovered it in 2009, at La Roque d'Anthéron, a heavyweight of classical festivals. A decade and around ten albums later, this Georgian who received French nationality in 2017 takes the stage at the Barbican Center in London. Her repertoire extends from Mozart to György Ligeti via Scarlatti and Liszt, where she can test her virtuosity. A game that some music lovers perceive more as a form of sentimentality or demonstration. His case, which divides criticism, raises the question of the best way to serve a score. “I allow myself all the emotions. Without dogma or morality »she assumed, in 2017.

No doubt Buniatishvili also owes her success to her ease in moving in front of the spotlight. Far from Arcadi Volodos, a brilliant pianist who prefers to play in semi-darkness to disappear behind the music, Khatia Buniatishvili sparkles with a thousand lights in a sequin dress on stage.

“Sometimes people only talk to me about my dresses. I want to answer that I would prefer to play in my pajamas, but we are expected today to be glamorous, sexy, modern”believes the one who does not hate debate and does not hesitate, as she did recently in “Le Figaro La Nuit”, to position herself on current international issues that affect her. In this case, the Georgian crisis.

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