Онуте Гражините

Arvo Pärt's Lamentate gave Onutė Gražinytė the title and the centre of her first disc, released in 2020 — a choice that says something about a pianist drawn to music of stillness and long lines. She began at five, entered the National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art in Vilnius, and continued at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover and in Berlin with Kirill Gerstein. She has played concertos with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, the Kaunas Symphony, the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg and the Orchestre National de Lyon, and is a committed chamber musician, appearing with Kremerata Baltica among others. Scriabin, Weinberg and Schumann have brought her together repeatedly with the conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, her sister, with whom she also recorded Čiurlionis for Deutsche Grammophon. Her teacher in Hannover from 2015 was Roland Kruger, and the Berlin class of Kirill Gerstein was at the Hanns Eisler academy. In 2015 she received an award from the President of Lithuania and directed and co-composed the annual opera production at the Ciurlionis school; the Buxtehude festival gave her its young artist prize in 2018, the year she played at the Warsaw Philharmonic and the Berlin Konzerthaus. The Lamentate disc was made with the Lithuanian National Philharmonic for Accentus and drew a Diapason d'or, and she has also recorded Part's Fratres with the cellist Edward King.