About
Vakhtang Kakhidze was born into a family of musicians in 1959 in Tbilisi, Georgia. He began to study music in age of 6 years as a pianist. In 1975 he finished choir conducting department of Music High School. In 1981 he graduated from Moscow State Conservatory as a composer, and in 1983 he finished the post graduate courses of the same institute. His teachers were such famous musicians as Nikolai Sidelnikov – composition, Edison Denisov – art of instrumentation and others.
As composer Vakhtang Kakhidze works in different musical genres. His pieces were performed in Moscow, Petersburg, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Finland, UK, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Turkey, Israel, India, the USA and Japan. He is an author of music for more than 60 drama performances, soundtracks for 20 films and animated cartoons, several jazz compositions and pop songs.
Vakhtang Kakhidze studied conducting in 1987-89 with his father, world famous Georgian conductor Djansug Kakhidze. In 1989 he started his activity as a conductor. His debut took place in Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre, where he has conducted several performances of his ballet “Amazons”. From 1993 he worked as conductor of Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra. Beside concert performances he recorded 25 CDs for famous international sound-recording companies as “Sony Classical” and others. In 2002 Vakhtang Kakhidze was appointed a Chief Conductor (Music Director) of Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of Djansug Kakhidze Tbilisi Centre for Music & Culture. During these years he conducted more than 500 concerts with Tbilisi Symphony orchestra in Georgia and other countries: Russia and Italy (2004), Armenia (2009), Israel (2016), Germany (2017/2018), Poland (2019), Turkey (2018/2022).
As guest conductor Vakhtang Kakhidze performed with such well-known orchestras and ensembles as: Kiev Symphony Orchestra (1994), chamber orchestras “Moscow Soloists” (1997-2005), Prague Symphony Orchestra (1997), “Kremerata Baltica” (1999), Symphony Orchestra “New Russia” (2003-2005), Beijing Symphony Orchestra (2005), Paris Trinity Church Choir and Orchestra (2006), German Ensemble “Del Arte” (2006-2008), Israel Chamber Orchestra (2006-2009), L’Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie (2008), The Israel Camerata-Jerusalem (2010-2014), Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (2016-2017), Northwest Deutsche Symphony Orchestra (2017), “Kobe Ensemble” (Japan-2019), “La Scala” Chamber Orchestra (2019/2022) and others.
Since 2002 Vakhtang Kakhidze leads annual International Music Festival “Autumn Tbilisi” (September-October), which hosts famous musicians all over the world.
In 2015 he established ”Djansug Kakhidze International Music Festival”, which is orientated on collaboration of Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra with World Stars of Jazz and Pop music as: “The Manhattan Transfer”, “New York Voices”, “Take Six”, “The Real Group”, “Swingle Singers”, “DePhazz”, Ivan Lins, Bob James, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Patti Austin, Ricchard Bona, Avishai Cohen and others. Vakhtang Kakhidze is holder of several prizes: in 1981 – 1st prize at the former USSR competition for young composer, in 1997 – “Spring” – The special prize instituted by Tbilisi City Hall for achievements in the arts, “Nato” – The prize instituted by Georgian Cinema Academy for the best film music, in 1998, 2005 and 2013 – The prize for the best music composed for drama performance instituted by Georgian Theatre Union, in 2000 – “Order of Honour” – The state award of Republic of Georgia, 2010 and 2021 – “Shota Rustaveli Prize” – The supreme award in the arts of Republic of Georgia, 2013 – “The Presidental Order of Exellence”, “Golden Feather” – The honourable prize established by Journalists Association of Georgia, in 2015 – “Zakhary Paliashvili prize” – established by the Musicians Association of Georgia, in 2018 – Honorary Citizen of Tbilisi, in 2022 – “Best of Georgia” – International award of Swiss Rating Association.