What counts as the launch of a musical education? The moment a person becomes familiar enough with musical language to be able to express something precious, or when parents take their children to music lessons, believing this is essential?
Zaza was born to a family of writers, mathematicians and artists. At a young age he was already spending hours at the neighbor’s piano, absorbed in his own musical tales and directing an invisible orchestra—all of his own will. His formal musical studies began much later, at the age of fourteen, when his mother first took him to guitar lessons. Several months later, inspired by his own initial successes, he began to play in several ensembles at school, performing western popular musics that were very much craved but not officially endorsed at that time – from rock to the Beatles. They tried to sound authentically western, but were not particularly successful; they were more successful developing their own compositions. He enrolled as a mechanical engineering student at Tbilisi State University, then as a Ph.D. student, afterwards he received a Humboldt fellowship for post-graduate work in Germany. But all this was secondary to Zaza. Even in his student years, music came first. Zaza began studying classical guitar with the real master Vladimir Giorgadze. His teacher advised him to stop performing with so many ensembles for some time in order to master the guitar. Later Zaza studied jazz with Lavrenti Jinch’aradze.
In 1990 Zaza and Zurab founded the group “Adio.” This was the culmination of a long search for a compelling synthesis of traditional Georgian and contemporary musics. One night the renowned Georgian composer Gia Kancheli showed up at an Adio concert. He was impressed with what he heard and proposed that the musicians compose music for a Robert Sturua theater production. Much of the music featured in Rustaveli Theater productions originated this way.
In 1993 Adio was invited to record an album and tour in Germany; the musicians remained there for several months. Zaza stayed in Germany, where he still lives and works today, gaining invaluable experience as a performer on western stages and working with world-renowned musicians. In 1998 Zurab and Zaza formed the duet “The Shin”; vocalist-percussionist Mamuka Ghaghanidze joined them in 2000. As a member of The Shin Zaza has taken part in numerous international projects and festivals, led seminars on polyrhythm, polyphony and improvisation theory, and shared stage bills with greats Jorge Pardo, Randy Brecker, Giora Feidman, Theodosii Spassov and many others.
During the last few years Zaza Miminoshvili, together with Zurab Gagnidze and Mamuka Gaganidze has launced several outstanding international projects, took part in the festivals in more than 30 countries, won German national World Music Contest, created new band in Stuttgart (Open World Project) and always has many exciting and creative ideas for several years ahead.
Since January 2009, Zaza has been playing a new, unique guitar called “JaZZ”. This guitar was created respecting Zaza’s special requests by the young luthier Daniel Stark. “The JaZZ is a globetrotter. She combines the colors of flamenco with those of jazz and classical music creating a seamless connection between the East and the West. The unique acoustic basis together with the hexaphonic pickup open a wide range of possibilities for orchestral and spherical sounds.”
www.gitarrenatelier-stark.de
