Alexander Toradze

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Alexander (Lexo) Toradze (born May 30, 1952) is a classical concert pianist best known for his classical Russian repertoire, with a career spanning more than three decades.

He taught piano at Indiana University South Bend from 1991 to 2017.

Early life

Alexander Toradze, a popular Georgian composer, and Liana, a film actress and ophthalmologist, attended Tbilisi's central music academy at six and first performed with orchestra at nine. He continued his studies at the Moscow Conservatory, beginning in nineteen under Yakov Zak, Boris Zemliansky, and Lev Naumov, who graduated in 1978.

Personal life and death

Toradze was married to pianist Susan Blake, with whom he had two sons, Alex and David, from 1990 to 2002. During a Vancouver, Washington, performance with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra USA on April 23, 2022, Toradze suffered acute heart failure. He died in South Bend, Indiana, aged 69, less than three weeks later on May 11, 2022.

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Career

In 1977, Toradze won the silver medal in the Fifth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Pianist and jury member Lili Kraus later told The New York Times: "...I have never heard, and I am sure no one else has either, power and passion with such limitless potential. He uses every atom, every fiber of his body for no other purpose than that of living the music. He is, like Radu Lupu when he won, a mixture of the animal and the angel. It is first‐prize playing."

In 1983, while on tour with the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra of Moscow, he requested asylum at the American Embassy in Madrid and made his home in the United States.

In 1991, Toradze became the Martin Endowed Professor of Piano at Indiana University South Bend. Members of the international Toradze Piano Studio at IUSB were active participants in summer festivals including those in Salzburg, White Nights Festival, London Proms, Edinburgh, Ravinia, Ruhr, Rotterdam, Mikkeli, Finland, Hollywood Bowl, Saratoga, Rome, Florence, Venice, Ravenna, Bologna, Lisbon, Ruhr Festival, and others.

Toradze appeared with the world's leading orchestras, such as Berlin Philharmonic, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, La Scala Philharmonic, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, City of Birmingham Symphony, London's Symphony, Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras, NHK in Japan, Czech, Hungarian, Israeli, Rotterdam, Warsaw Philharmonics, the radio orchestras in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Italy. He performed with almost every major orchestra in the United States, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minnesota, Houston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Seattle and Washington D.C. He also appeared with the symphonies of Montreal and Toronto. He worked with various notable conductors, including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mikko Franck, Valery Gergiev, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Gianandrea Noseda, Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and Klaus Tennstedt.

Toradze was famous for his praying before he performed. When asked by classical radio host Bruce Duffie what advice he could give to aspiring concert pianists, Toradze replied, "Don't forget to pray to God before each performance and don't forget to give your soul enough air. Believe in the right purpose of art and believe in being human".

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