Biography
Vienna-based Georgian pianist Irma Gigani is one of those rare musicians whose playing, at the highest technical level, speaks an unmistakable and deeply personal musical language.
Born into a family that shaped Georgia’s cultural life, she grew up in surroundings where art and social responsibility were inseparable. For her, music has therefore never been mere aesthetics, but a direct expression of identity, freedom, risk and truthfulness – shaped by temperament and passion.
She first appeared on stage at the age of five, playing Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in F minor. What already showed so fascinatingly in the child prodigy has since grown into an artistic maturity marked by an exceptional depth of empathy and structural clarity.
- Based in
- Vienna, Austria
- Studied with
- Prof. Stefan Arnold, mdw Vienna
- Award
- 1st Prize, Bechstein-Bruckner Competition 2021
- Debut album
- Prokofiev · Sonatas 2, 4 & 8 (2026)
Irma Gigani lives and works in Vienna, a city where musical present and tradition are in constant dialogue – a dialogue she likes to take up in her programmes. From 2019 to 2024 she studied (Master’s and postgraduate degrees) in the class of Prof. Stefan Arnold at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Since 2023 she has been invited as assistant to Prof. Arnold’s masterclass at Haus Marteau in Lichtenberg, Germany.
Her concert career has taken her to many cities and renowned halls, including the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Salle Cortot in Paris, the Tchaikovsky Hall and the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. She has performed with orchestras such as the Presidential Symphony Orchestra Ankara, the Tbilisi National Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Camerata and the Orchestre de Picardie, and has been a guest at festivals including the Michelangeli Piano Festival (Italy), the Lille Piano Festival, Piano Folies, the Naarden International Music Festival, the Arsonore International Music Festival, the Tbilisi Piano Festival and the Festival de Laon.
Irma Gigani is a prizewinner of major competitions: in 2021 she won First Prize and two special prizes at the Bechstein-Bruckner Competition in Linz; she also received Second Prize at “Les Étoiles du Piano” (France), First Prize at the Chopin Competition in Georgia, and distinctions at the Aarhus International Piano Competition.
In autumn 2026 her debut album is released by Supreme Music Group, featuring Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas Nos. 2, 4 and 8 – a selection that, like few others, unites existential ruptures, irony, motoric drive and lyrical introspection. Gigani approaches Prokofiev not as a mere virtuoso but as a musical storyteller, with artistic depth and a keen sense of dramatic shape.