Botso Korisheli 

Sculpture, music

Biography

Botso Korisheli (Vakhtang Chikvinidze) was born in 1921 in Tbilisi, Georgia. In 1936 Botso was just 14 when his father Platon Korisheli (he adopted this pseudonym after the name of a mountain in his own village Dimi), a popular stage actor, was declared an enemy of the state and executed in 1936.

During World War II the aspiring concert pianist was forced to join the Soviet army. While digging ditches on the front lines, he crossed the Russian border in Nazi-controlled Poland, where he was captured, imprisoned and drafted as a translator.

After the war Botso Korisheli did not return to Georgia, he immigrated to the US, where he studied piano at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, now the California Institute of the Arts, before earning his teaching credentials at UC Santa Barbara then moving to Morro Bay in 1957. There, he became one of the region’s most influential educators, founding the San Luis Obispo Youth Symphony in 1965 and teaching many now high-profile musicians.

In addition to music, Korisheli also had an impact on the local arts scene as a sculptor whose public works included "Pelican Family” and "Giant Chessboard” are in Morro Bay. He learned how to carve stone under the instruction of his friend and fellow Georgian, late Cambria sculptor George Papashvily.

Georgian-born teacher, pianist, painter and sculptor Botso Korisheli died in 2015 aged 93.

https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article39057810.html 

https://www.radiotavisupleba.ge/a/botso-korishvili-legendaruli.../27163469.html

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