Barrie Concerts & Georgian Music

During the 2022-23 season Nurhan Arman continues as Music Director of Sinfonia Toronto and guest conducts orchestras in Canada, Italy, Germany, Greece and Georgia. Recent engagements have included a four-concert tour in Italy with Orchestra I PomeriggiMusicali, the Festival Udine Castello, National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia and return engagements with the Kammerorchester Arpeggione in Austria and San Remo Philharmonic in Italy. In the last four seasons he has led Sinfonia Toronto in a South American tour with concerts in Peru, Argentina and Uruguay as well as a three-week tour in China.

Maestro Arman has conducted throughout Europe, Asia, South America, Canada and the US, returning regularly to many orchestras in Europe. Among the orchestras Maestro Arman has conducted are the Moscow Philharmonic, DeutschesKammerorchester, l’Orchestre Regional d’Ile de France, Hermitage Orchestra St. Petersburg, Hungarian Symphony, Orchestra Milano Classica and Belgrade Philharmonic. During the 2022-23 season he will guest-conduct in the Georgian Republic, Germany, Greece and Italy.

Born to Armenian parents in Istanbul, he played his first violin recital at the age of 13. After arriving in the US on a Disney Foundation scholarship, he concertized from coast to coast, performing across the US and at the Tanglewood, Spoleto, New York and Florida music festivals. After several seasons of leading US orchestras as concertmaster, he began a conducting career that has taken him all over the world.

Violinist Elisso Gogibedaschwili was born in 2000, into a family of musicians in the Vorarlberg region of Austria. She began winning first prizes in the Austrian Young Artists Competition “Prima la Musica” at the age of six and made her concerto debut at ten, playing the Bruch Violin Concerto with the MAV orchestra in Budapest.

At 12 Elisso performed the famously difficult Sibelius Violin Concerto at the Musikverein Klagenfurt in Austria. She has gone on to solo with orchestras such as the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic, Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra and Israel Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared several times with Sinfonia Toronto.

She has performed in Smetana Hall in Prague, the Broward Centre in Florida, Palazzo Liberté in Milan, Tübingen University Hall, Dornbirn Cultural Hall and at the Alba Music Festival.

In 2008 Elisso began violin studies with Prof. Josef Rissin at the University of Music in Karlsruhe, Germany as a precollege student and then continued as a Bachelors student. Since October 2021 she has studied with Prof. Krzysztof Wegrzyn at the Hannover University of Music and Theatre.

A passionate chamber musician as well as soloist, Elisso has performed with renowned artists including Nargiza Alimova, Maria Meerovitch, Regina Chernychko, Kristóf Baráti and legendary pianist Bruno Canino. Masterclasses with Ana Chumachenco and Ingolf Turban completed her musical education.

In 2019 Elisso received the Vorarlberg Cultural Award and the Bayreuth Richard Wagner Scholarship and was chosen as the only string player to perform a concert at the 2021 Bayreuth summer festival. She is a Liechtenstein International Music Academy scholarship holder of the and takes part in intensive activity weeks at the academy.

Reviews of Elisso’s performances are full of praise: “cheerful-charming stage presence in addition to masterly technique and mature, immaculate and differentiated beauty of sound.” “Remarkable was the modesty of the musician, for all virtuosity. She internalized the music, was totally with herself and plays with an expressiveness that is not interested in superficial, technical effects.”

Elisso plays a violin by Andrea Guarneri from the end of the 17th century, generously loaned by the Otten family.Thanks to her multi-ethnic origins and travels, she is fluent in Georgian, German, English, Chinese, Russian and French.

Now in its 24th season, Sinfonia Toronto has toured in Europe, the US, South America and China, and performs in cities across Ontario. The orchestra has released four cd’s, including the JUNO winner Flanders Fields Reflections cd of works by Ontario composer John Burge.

Sinfonia Toronto’s Digital Inclusion Project shares concert livestreams and videos free for the residents of 40-plus long-term care homes in Ontario and students attending non-profit community music schools.

The orchestra’s extensive repertoire includes all the major string orchestra works of the 18th through 21st centuries. It has premiered many new works, especially music by Canadian composers. Under the baton of Music Director Nurhan Arman, the orchestra’s performances present outstanding international guest artists and prominent Canadian musicians.