Inna Nassidze
Inna Nassidze made her solo debut at the age of 10 in her native town of Tbilisi, Georgia with the Georgian State Chamber Orchestra. In 1988 she was the winner of All-Soviet Junior Cello Competition. In 1993 she was awarded the Gabor Rejto fellowship at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, where she performed the Dvorak Cello Concerto as a winner of the Concerto Competition. In the summer of 1996 Inna was awarded a special prize as the Most Outstanding cellist at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.
Miss Nassidze started playing the piano at the age of three and took up the cello when she was seven, studying with her father David Nassidze at the Central Special Music School for Gifted in Tbilisi. She also took lessons with Natalia Shahovskaya in Moscow. In 1990 Inna moved with her family to Mexico, where she continued her solo career, playing with some of the major Orchestras there, as well as recitals throughout Mexico.
Miss Nassidze graduated in 1999 from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where she studied with David Soyer, and did Chamber music studies with Felix Galimir. From 1999 through 2002 Inna was the cellist of the Gilead String Quartet in Residence at the University of Maine. Inna also played in master classes for artists such as Yo Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, Miriam Fried, Bernard Greenhouse, David Geringas, Steven Isserlis, Jamie Laredo and Isaac Stern.
Miss Nassidze has participated at the Ravinia Festival in 1994 and 1995, where she was invited to perform at the prestigious Dame Myra Hess memorial concerts series in Chicago, performing live on radio. In 1997 she attended the Piatigorsky Seminar in Los Angeles, and the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Seminar in New York, where she consequently performed at Carnegie Hall.
Inna has performed under the baton of Otto Werner-Muller, Akira Endo, Camille Kalchinsky, Francisco Savin, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Christopher Zimmerman, Carlos Riazuelo, Jorge Mester, Lanfranco Marcelletti, and Luis Herrera de la Fuente, among others, and collaborated with members of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society such as Ida Kavafian, Steve Tenenbom and Kerry McDermott.
She premiered Barber Cello Concerto in 2003 and Milhaud Cello Concerto in 2005 in Mexico with the Xalapa Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Carlos Miguel Prieto and Bartholomeus Henri van de Velde.
In December of 2005 Inna was invited to perform at the Christmas Gala Concert in Mexico City which was recorded for National television and for BBC.
Inna has been invited to such prestigious festival as Riva del Garda, Italy, Festival de Mayo, Mexico and Summit Musica Festival in New York, USA. She is a frequent guest soloist with the major Orchestras in Mexico, her upcoming performances include Bloch, Schelomo and Brahms Double Concerto.
Since 2003 Inna is a cello and chamber music faculty at the Superior Institute of Music in Xalapa, Mexico and since 2008 a cello and chamber music faculty at the Summit Music Festival in New York and in Burgos, Spain.
In 2015 she won the position and currently is part of the cello section of the Xalapa Symphony Orchestra.
Inna Nassidze plays on the cello given to her by the wish of the late renowned cellist Raya Garbousova.