Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs of Georgia expresses deep sorrow over his death.
“The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs of Georgia respects the contribution of Alexander Toradze to the development of Georgian culture and extends its condolences to the family, relatives and colleagues of the deceased,” the Ministry announced.
PM Irakli Garibashvili also extended condolences and praised his contribution to the development of Georgian culture.
“Toradze’s pedagogical work will be appreciated many more times in the future, as he raised generations who successfully participated in prestigious festivals with leading orchestras and conductors from around the world,” he said.
Alexander (Lexo) Toradze was a classical concert pianist, best known for his classical Russian repertoire, with a career spanning over three decades. He was a professor of piano at Indiana University South Bend from 1991 to 2017.
Alexander Toradze was an outstanding Georgian musician. He was educated at the Vano Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatory and the Petre Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory.
In 1977, he finished second in the Fifth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Toradze graduated from the Moscow conservatory in 1978.
In 1983, while on tour with the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra of Moscow, he requested asylum at the American Embassy in Madrid and has since made his home in the United States.
Toradze appeared with world’s leading orchestras such as Berlin Philharmonic, Kirov 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 virtually 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.
