Lisa Batiashvili

The soloist was Lisa Batiashvili, outstanding even among the very many fine violinists of her generation.
This cadenza — a sudden freeing of the individual voice from its dark orchestral environment — was, in the hands of Batiashvili, a searing portrait of the creative soul inwardly screaming in anguish. … Batiashvili compressed the D-S-C-H motif tightly within both the cadenza and a Scherzo that seemed both to thumb the nose to authority, and to turn in on itself in grotesque self-mockery.
The sheer stamina, intensity of focus and perfectionism of pitch and voicing in Batiashvili’s performance was remarkable. And her encore — Shostakovich’s droll little Dance of the Dolls — was a perfectly judged release of tension

The Times, 08/2011

Batiashvili is highly impressive in Shostakovich’s Concerto. Her playing is often breathtaking -- she has a hugely adaptable sound, a well-judged and flexible vibrato, immaculate phrasing, and a piercingly precise sense of intonation. Even better, she knows how to use all these in the service of the music . . . Esa-Pekka Salonen is alive to the score's finer details.

The Strad, 03/2011