On 8 November 2014 Mariam Batsashvili won First Prize at the 10th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht. She received her prize in the main hall of TivoliVredenburg, in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Máxima. 'Winner Batsashvili turns every phrase into something special', headlined Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

Batsashvili also took home the Junior Jury Award and the Press Prize. The International Press Jury called her a 'complete artist' with a 'tremendous toucher' and full 'sincere emotion'.

Batsashvili is the first female First Prize winner of the Liszt Competition. As winner she will embark on an extensive concert tour, taking her to more than 30 countries. Already the morning after the Finals in Utrecht’s TivoliVredenburg she made her debut in a sold-out main hall of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Together with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of James Gaffigan, she once more performed Liszt’s Concerto No. 1 in E flat major.

Mariam Batsashvili studied successively at the E. Mikeladze Central Music School in Tbilisi with Natalia Natsvlishvili and at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar with Grigory Gruzman. She won prizes from various competitions such as First Prize at the International Franz Liszt Competition for Young Pianists in Weimar in 2011 and Second Prize at the María Herrero International Piano Competition in Granada in 2012. Aside from her native country, Mariam has performed in such countries as Germany, Spain, Italy, Israel, South Africa, both in recital and with orchestra. She was a soloist with the Erfurt Philharmonisches Orchester and with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra on numerous occasions.

In the coming years to 2017, Batsashvili will work with renowned orchestras such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Brussels Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ecuador. She will also play at festivals such as the Beethovenfest Bonn, Pianofortissimo Festival Bologna and Delft Chamber Music Festival. The tour will cover 24 countries including China, Brazil, the United States, South Africa, Russia, Indonesia, Georgia, Spain, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. 

Mariam Batsashvili has been selected as a 'Rising Star' by ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) for the season 2016/17. As a Rising Star she will perform a concert tour across 21 of the most prestigious venues of Europe, including Musikverein Wien and Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam.

Mariam Batsashvili is a scholarship holder of Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben.

Russian pianist Marina Yakhlakova was born in 1991 in Moscow. She began playing the piano at the age of 5 under the guidance of Vitaly Mishchenko and in 2001 entered into the Moscow Gnessin School of Music for Gifted Children where she graduated under Natalia Zdobnova.

In 2009, Marina was accepted to study at the Moscow State Conservatory where she has spent the past four years working with internationally renowned pianist, Alexander Strukov. During this time, she became a laureate of the Sixth Festival of Romantic Music for Young Musicians and won the Marina Bondarenko Memorial Award at Tel-Hai in Israel.

In 2011, Marina was the first prizewinner of the prestigious, International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar and Bayreuth, Germany. In addition, she received the Special Award for the best interpretation of a work by Franz Liszt.

Since winning, Marina has been in demand internationally demonstrating an unusually large concerto repertoire for her age. She has toured Austria, Germany, Holland, Israel, Canada, Lithuania, Norway, Russia and Sweden.

Marina recently signed an exclusive record deal with the Master Performers record label, the first CD in collaboration with American piano manufacturer, Mason & Hamlin featuring Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Tchaikovsky/Pletnev's Nutcracker Suite which has become one of her signature works and an audience favorite. Her follow-up album, The Art of the Impromptu was released in 2014. Marina is also set to record with American Cellist, Julian Schwarz.

In April 2014, Marina began an extensive tour of Australasia, starting in Brisbane, Australia with a performance of the Saint-Sa？ns Piano Concerto No. 2 under the baton of Maestro Vassilis Christopoulos and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra at QPAC Concert Hall.