At an age of only 20, Veriko Tchumburidze won First Prize in the prestigious Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition, immediately attracting the attention of the music world.
Born in Adana (Turkey) in 1996, Ms Tchumburidze began her studies at Mersin University's State Conservatory at the age of four as a student of Selahattin Yunkuş and Lili Tchumburidze. She continued her studies in 2010 with Professor Dora Schwarzberg as part of the Young Musicians on World Stages (YMWS) project, created and mentored by Güher & Süher Pekinel, with the financial support of Tüpraş, at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna.
Having been accepted to the Musikhochschule München at age of 19, Ms Tchumburidze continued her studies with Ana Chumachenco, attending master classes in various countries with, among others, Professor Igor Ozim and Professor Dora Schwarzberg.
Ms Tchumburidze plays a violin made by Giambattista Guadagnini in 1756, provided thanks to the generosity of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben in 2016.
When only 8 years old, Ms Tchumburidze won first prize at the Gülden Turalı National Violin Competition, and in 2006 she received first prize at the Georgian National Competition. In 2012, at age 16, she won first prize at the 7th International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians by a unanimous verdict of the jury, achieving the highest score of all participants. She was subsequently invited to several international concerts and festivals in different countries, including Russia, Switzerland and Germany.
In 2013 Ms Tchumburidze was named the Best Emerging Musician by the Andante music magazine in Turkey and performed at the opening concert of the 41st Istanbul Music Festival with the Borusan Symphony Orchestra. In the same year she was invited to participate in the Seiji Ozawa Academy Master Class and to the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. She went on to continue her studies with the famous violinist and pedagogue Ana Chumachenco, with whom she is currently working in Munich.
Her concert with the YMWS scholars in March 2014 at the Zurich Tonhalle Chamber Series was recorded live and released as a DVD with interviews of DRS Radio. Immediately after the DVD release in 2014, Tchumburidze was invited to perform with the Swiss Chamber Orchestra at the Culture and Convention Center in Lucerne. After that concert she was chosen by the Orpheum Musik Stiftung Zürich, which prepares extraordinary musicians for a world career, to release a CD series together with the Munich Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Howard Griffiths on the occasion of Orpheum's 25th anniversary, in cooperation with Sony Classical.
Ms Tchumburidze was the first ever Turkish/Georgian musician to be accepted to participate in the famous 15th Tchaikovsky International Competition in 2015. Tchumburidze has performed with international orchestras, including the Züricher Kammerorchester, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester, the Musikkollegium Winterthur and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra.
Together with the YMWS scholars she played in 2015 as a member of the Trio Arte ensemble with cellist Dorukhan Doruk and pianist Yunus Tuncalı. The trio played recitals at the Boğaziçi Albert Long Hall, the Notre Dame de Sion Concert Hall and at the D-Marin Classical Music Festival. The ensemble played more concerts in the chamber music series at the Süreyya Opera at the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall: they performed Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Pekinel sisters and the Istanbul and Izmir symphony orchestras, as well as the Presidential Symphony Orchestra, Ankara. In April 2016 she took part in the Oslo ECMA chamber music festival.
In January 2016 she performed in Zürich to promote her first CD released by Sony, giving numerous interviews to the most important international press outlets. That month, Ms Tchumburidze recorded a CD featuring John Williams’s Schindler’s List for Sony Classical together with the Brandenburgisches Kammerorchester and Howard Griffiths. Ms Tchumburidze was elected by Orpheum Stiftung to headline the opening concert of the Zürich Opernhaus Film Festival on 1 October 2016.
In June 2016, as member of Trio Arte, Ms Tchumburidze received first prize in the chamber music category at the Pietro Argento International Music Competition at Gioia del Colle in Italy. Immediately after the competition, she played a recital with world-famous violist Gérard Caussé at the 44th International Istanbul Music Festival. The performance was filmed. Trio Arte also performed the world premiere of renowned composer Özkan Manav's work Ludus Modalis written especially for this event and dedicated to Trio Arte.
(photo: David Ausserhofer)