Nurhan Arman Conducts Sinfonia Toronto
October 22, 2023, 2:30pm - Bethel Community Church

- Concert Program
- Concert Program notes
- Nurhan Arman, Music Director
- Elisso Gogibedaschwili
- Sinfonia Toronto
Nurhan Arman, Music Director
Maestro Nurhan Arman has conducted throughout Europe, Asia, South America, Canada and the US, returning regularly to many orchestras in Europe. Among the orchestras Maestro Arman has conducted are the Moscow Philharmonic, DeutschesKammerorchester Frankfurt, FilarmonicaItaliana, St. Petersburg State Hermitage Orchestra, Orchestre Regional d’Ile de France, Hungarian Symphony, Arpeggione Kammerorchester, Milano Classica and Belgrade Philharmonic. He begins the 2023-24 season with guest-conducting engagements in Austria and Italy before launching the Sinfonia Toronto season in October.
Elisso Gogibedaschwili
Violinist Elisso Gogibedashvili was born in 2000, into a family of musicians in the Vorarlberg region of Austria. She began winning first prizes in the Austrian Young Artists Competition “Prima la Musica” at the age of six and made her concerto debut at ten, playing the Bruch Violin Concerto with the MAV orchestra in Budapest.
At 12 Elisso performed the famously difficult Sibelius Violin Concerto at the Musikverein Klagenfurt in Austria. She has gone on to solo with orchestras including the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic, Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra and Israel Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared several times with Sinfonia Toronto. She has performed in Smetana Hall in Prague, the Broward Centre in Florida, Palazzo Liberté in Milan, Tübingen University Hall, Dornbirn Cultural Hall and at the Alba Music Festival.
In 2008 Elisso began violin studies at the University of Music in Karlsruhe, Germany as a precollege student and then continued as a Bachelors student. Since October 2021 she has studied at the Hannover University of Music and Theatre. In 2019 Elisso received the Vorarlberg Cultural Award and the Bayreuth Richard Wagner Scholarship and was chosen as the only string player to perform a concert at the 2021 Bayreuth summer festival. She is a Liechtenstein International Music Academy scholarship holder of the and takes part in intensive activity weeks at the academy.
Reviews of Elisso’s performances are full of praise: “cheerful-charming stage presence in addition to masterly technique and mature, immaculate and differentiated beauty of sound.” “Remarkable was the modesty of the musician, for all virtuosity. She internalized the music, was totally with herself and plays with an expressiveness that is not interested in superficial, technical effects.”
Elisso plays a violin by Andrea Guarneri from the end of the 17th Century, generously loaned by the Otten family. Thanks to her multi-ethnic origins and travels, she is fluent in Georgian, German, English, Chinese, Russian and French.
Sinfonia Toronto
Sinfonia Toronto, now celebrating its 25th season, has toured twice in Europe, in the US, South America and China, receiving glowing reviews. It has released four CD’s, including a JUNO Award winner, and performs in many Ontario cities. Its extensive repertoire includes all the major string orchestra works of the 18th through 21st centuries, and it has premiered many new works. Under the baton of Nurhan Arman the orchestra’s performances present outstanding international guest artists and prominent Canadian musicians.