Full biography
Georgian cellist Sandro Sidamonidze has established a wide-ranging career as a soloist and chamber musician, appearing across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Recent engagements have included his China debut with the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra in Zhao Jiping’s Zhuang Zhou’s Dream and the United States premiere of Vaja Azarashvili’s Cello Concerto at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center in New York.
Sidamonidze has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra, Evgeni Mikeladze Georgian National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra For People, and Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra. His performances have taken him to the Vienna Musikverein, Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Newport Music Festival, as well as to concert stages throughout Austria, Germany, Georgia, the United Kingdom, China, and the United States.
His playing has attracted critical attention from an early stage of his career. He has been described in the press as a “cello virtuoso,” while Lansing City Pulse wrote that he “made time stand still with a low, warm flame of flickering melody.” Following a performance at 10 Downing Street in London, Dame Fanny Waterman recalled in The Guardian that the “young cellist from Tbilisi played so beautifully that Mr Brown came in to listen.”
Contemporary music forms an important part of Sidamonidze’s artistic work. In addition to the U.S. premiere of Azarashvili’s Cello Concerto, he has performed music by Zhao Jiping and Lowell Liebermann, including Liebermann’s Chamber Concerto No. 3. His discography includes Liebermann’s Trio No. 2 for flute, cello and piano, as well as music by Arvo Pärt recorded for Gramola.
Sidamonidze has collaborated with distinguished musicians and composers including Natalia Gutman, Giya Kancheli, Paul Watkins, and Lowell Liebermann.
As cellist of the Vienna-based Trio Revolution, he appears on the ensemble’s debut recording, Unconventional Journey, devoted to works by Liebermann, Haydn, and Kapustin. The album was nominated for the 2024 OPUS KLASSIK Award for Chamber Music Recording of the Year and separately for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. American Record Guide praised the ensemble’s playing for its “gusto and supreme accuracy,” while Klassik Heute noted its “highest degree of artistic control.”
Sidamonidze’s work has been featured by Süddeutsche Zeitung, Billboard Georgia, American Record Guide, Klassik Heute, and Georgia Today. He is a Voting Member of the Recording Academy and has served on the jury of the Manana Doijashvili Georgian Competition of Musician-Performers.
Alongside his work as a soloist and chamber musician, Sidamonidze has held orchestral leadership positions in the United States, serving as Principal Cello of the Battle Creek Symphony from 2021 to 2025 and as Assistant Principal Cello of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra. He is also Managing Director of the Manufaktur der Künste Festival in Vienna.