Central College Faculty Recital - Tariel Iberi, guitar

For over twenty years, Tariel Iberi has played and taught guitar around the U.S. and Europe, and he currently teaches at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City and at Central College in Pella, Iowa.

Tariel Iberi was born Tariel Berimeladze in 1956 in Kutaisi, Georgia. Mr. Iberi began playing guitar by listening to and imitating rock and blues artists such as Jimi Hendrix, and when it became evident that he had talent, he decided to pursue music in earnest, studying guitar with Giorgi Silaev. Mr. Iberi subsequently studied under Ivan Stepanov at Kiev Music College and under Giorgi Kazakov at the Ukraine Lviv State Conservatory. Upon graduating, Mr. Iberi returned to Georgia and established guitar programs first at Tblisi Music College and then at the Tblisi State Conservatory. He gave concerts and master classes in Georgia, Bulgaria, Turkey, the Ukraine, and the U.S.A.

In the course of his musical education and career, Mr. Iberi came to cherish the special beauty of the music of his native country—its variegated folk music as well as its art music—and he set out on a life-long mission to extend this musical tradition to the guitar.