VIRSALADZE, Maka Maya

Georgian composer of mostly chamber, choral, vocal, and piano works that have been performed in Asia and Europe.

Ms. Virsaladze finished her studies at the Zakaria Paliashvili Special School of Music in Tbilisi in 1989 and studied composition with Bidzina Kvernadze at the Conservatory of Music in Tbilisi from 1990–95, where she also studied musicology with Lia Dolidze from 1994–96 and graduated with honours in both subjects. She then had postgraduate studies in composition with Nodar Mamisashvili there from 1996–98. She later studied composition with Walter Zimmermann at the Universität der Künste Berlin in 2000–01.

Among her honours are the Georgian Ministry of Culture Prize (1994, for Three Romances), an appearance as composer-in-residence at the festival Menhir in Falera, Switzerland (2005) and a portrait concert in Tbilisi (2008). Her music has been performed in Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, and Ukraine.

She is also active in other positions. She co-founded the Union of Young Georgian Composers and Musicologists in Tbilisi in 1998. She later worked for the creative-therapy organisation FDHR in Tbilisi.

She has taught choral arrangement, fundamentals of composition and score reading as an assistant professor at the Conservatory of Music in Tbilisi since 2007.