What does learning actually look like inside the brain?

In this episode of #WISEOnAir, Stavros Yiannouka, CEO of WISE, speaks with Nicolas Namoradze—classical pianist, composer, and neuropsychology researcher who premiered the world's first "Neurorecital" at Verbier Festival in 2025.

Together, they explore what real-time brain imaging during musical performance can teach us about deep learning, practice, and what education might look like if it were designed around how the brain actually works.

Nicolas Namoradze: Memories of Rachmaninoff's Georgian Song (2022)

Nicolas Namoradze, piano
Recorded live at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, NYC, July 2023

Find the score in hard copy and download versions: https://muse-press.com/en/product-tag/nicolas-namoradze-en/

Memories of Rachmaninoff’s Georgian Song was written for Rachmaninoff’s sesquicentennial celebrations. It is based on an early song of his, Oh, do not sing for me, Op. 4 No. 4, set to a poem by Pushkin and known as the “Georgian Song.” The song’s expressively winding and melismatic opening, highly reminiscent of Georgian folk music yet an original creation of Rachmaninoff’s, introduces the following verse:

Do not sing for me, my beauty,
Your sad Georgian songs of yore;
For they wake deep from my memory
Another life and a distant shore.

Memories of Rachmaninoff’s Georgian Song is neither an arrangement nor a paraphrase, but rather the musical equivalent of a faint, dreamlike recollection — an allusion to the topic of the original song itself. The work opens with a sparse figuration where strains of the song’s melody are occasionally suggested, as if from far away. A gradual thickening of the texture leads to a more recognizable utterance of Rachmaninoff’s thematic material before the work retreats back into the realm of distant memory.

The full video of the entire recital will be released soon — stay tuned and make sure to subscribe for updates!

Bach: Prelude and Fugue in E major from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II, BWV 878

00:00 Prelude
04:22 Fugue

Nicolas Namoradze, piano
Recorded live in concert at Wigmore Hall, June 2025

This was performed as an encore after a recital at Wigmore Hall in June 2025. Stay tuned for a full recording (including the third movement) coming soon!

Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 (arr. Nicolas Namoradze)

0:00 Lever du jour
06:11 Pantomime

Nicolas Namoradze, piano
Recorded live in concert at Wigmore Hall, June 2025

Full concert here: https://bit.ly/49IESWn

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Johannes Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83

1. Allegro non troppo

Nicolas Namoradze — Pianist
Budapest Festival Orchestra
Iván Fischer — Conductor

Concert recorded at Béla Bartók National Concert Hall (Müpa, Budapest, Hungary), on February 20, 2024.

© medici.tv / Budapest Festival Orchestra

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Franz Liszt (1811-1886): Totentanz, S. 525


Nicolas Namoradze, Piano


Recorded live on 28 August, 2021 at the Chapel of Gstaad


Director & Editor: Christina Ruloff

Sound: Joël Cormier



Come and visit us here: Gstaad Menuhin Festival: https://www.gstaadmenuhinfestival.ch/en
Gstaad Digital Festival: https://www.gstaaddigitalfestival.ch/en/

Rachmaninoff-Namoradze: Adagio from Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27

Nicolas Namoradze, piano
Recorded live at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, NYC, July 2023

Get the score at: https://muse-press.com/en/product-tag/nicolas-namoradze-en/

The premiere of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in 1908 cemented his reputation as one of the leading symphonists of his time, and to this day the work remains among his most celebrated musical statements. The third movement, Adagio, is emblematic of many features that define his compositional language, including enchantingly expansive melodies, a rich harmonic palette, searing climaxes and lush, full textures.

While adhering strictly to the thematic and harmonic material of the original, this arrangement is less a strict transcription and more a reimagining of the movement for the piano, taking a generally liberal approach with reworking the textures in order to create a pianistically idiomatic piece. The piano writing is informed both by Rachmaninoff’s compositional style as well as my own approach to keyboard texture.

Now playing in this video: 🎵 Namoradze: Etude II "Mostly Triads"

Nicolas Namoradze brings crystalline precision and harmonic inventiveness to Étude II, "Mostly Triads," a work that reimagines the humble triad as a source of endless colour and surprise. Playful and rigorous at once, the piece transforms a simple harmonic building block into a study of pianistic imagination.

🌟 About the Artist
Namoradze was born in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1992 and grew up in Budapest, Hungary. Following his undergraduate studies in Budapest, Vienna, and Florence, Namoradze moved to New York for his master’s at The Juilliard School and doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center, holding the Graduate Center Fellowship. His teachers and mentors have included Emanuel Ax, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Zoltán Kocsis, Matti Raekallio, András Schiff and Elisso Virsaladze in piano, and John Corigliano in composition.

View Nicolas's YouTube Channel: @NicolasNamoradze

📘 Resources and Links
View Full Concert Programme Notes: https://social.classeek.com/NicolasConcert
Read Nicolas's full biography: https://social.classeek.com/NicolasBio
Discover the Ambassador Programme: https://social.classeek.com/YT-AmbassadorProgramme
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