Chicago pianist and DePaul University faculty member Eteri Andjaparidze’s enthusiasm for sharing her knowledge and love of keyboard music extends far beyond the confines of the internationally renowned AmerKlavier Studio which she established at DePaul in 2003.

In her homeland, the Republic of Georgia, she recently established her own special prize awarded to the youngest Georgian to win honors in the prestigious International Tbilisi Piano Competition. This coveted award includes a month-long residency in Chicago where the winner will have the opportunity to study with Andjaparidze, participate in her master classes, and perform on the AmerKlavier concert series.

The first recipient of the Eteri Andjaparidze Special Award is Tamar Beraia, who travels to Chicago in the coming weeks. She is accompanied by her older sister Natia, also a gifted pianist, on their first trip to the United States. Tamar will be presented in a solo piano recital on Monday evening, February 5, and will play a piano duet with Natia in a “Homage to Franz Schubert” program on Thursday, February 15. Both offerings will be performed in the DePaul Concert Hall, 800 West Belden in Chicago at 8:00 p.m. Admission for the public is free.

Pianists Tamar, age 19, and Natia, age 20, are from Tbilisi, Georgia. The sisters are currently studying with professor Nana Khubutia at the Tbilisi Sarajishvili State Conservatoire. In unusually parallel career paths, these girls have participated in numerous competitions throughout Europe, often competing against each other. Tamar won the Tbilisi Piano Competition in 2005; Natia recently won third prize in the Emil Gilels Intentional Competition in Odessa, Ukraine. Together they have appeared in concert series and festivals in Serbia, Austria, France, and Switzerland. Over the Christmas holidays they performed at the United States Ambassador’s residence in Georgia.

Tamar Beraia’s February 5 recital opens with six choral preludes by J.S. Bach and Schoenberg’s Six Little Pieces for Piano, op. 19, penned just prior to the composer’s most famous score, Pierrot Lunaire. The virtuosic Gaspard de la nuit addresses Ravel’s anguish at his father’s fatal illness in 1908. Liszt’s single greatest work for piano solo, the sonata in B minor completes this program. It was Liszt’s colleague Richard Wagner, who recognized at once the true worth of this sonata, calling it “beautiful, grandiose, delightful, profound and noble beyond compare.”

The February 15 “Homage to Franz Schubert” features the Beraia sisters performing the Fantasy in F minor, Op. 103, D.940. Throughout his creative life, Schubert wrote some sixty works for piano duet (four hands at one keyboard) to amuse his friends, challenge his students, and entertain his patrons. The Opus 103 Fantasia, written in 1828, has been termed the “crowning glory “ of Schubert’s piano duets, uncharacteristically intense and emotional. DePaul piano faculty member Kristijan Civljak will be joined by Olga Bojovic, a voice student in DePaul’s graduate program, and clarinetist Daniel Won, a DePaul alumnus, for a performance of Shepherd on the Rock, Op. post.129, D.965. Completing this program of Schubert favorites, the beloved Quintet in A major, Trout, Op.114, D667, partners Andjaparidze with DePaul alumni Roxana Pavel-Goldstein, violin; Elias Goldstein, viola; Micah Fusselman, cello; and Chris Flores, string bass.

Eteri Andjaparidze developed the AmerKlavier Studio to provide a nurturing course of study that seeks to address the individual skills and strengths of aspiring pianists through special artistic/educational projects and a concert/colloquium series. Andjaparidze, whose own successful international career has taken her to major music centers around the globe, joined the DePaul School of Music faculty in the fall of 2001.

Contact: John Holden, 312-362-7165, or jholden2@depaul.edu