Viola

Member of the quartet since 1997

Girdutis Jakaitis started his professional concert career as a viola student at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius. In 1989, he won the 2nd prize at the young performers’ competition in Chisinau (Moldova), and later participated in the international competitions in Italy and Germany. As a violist with the string quartet of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, he has given concerts at the Great Hall of the Moscow P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory and at the National Academy of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 1990, he honed his skills at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, taking master courses with Prof. Thomas Riebl.

He has performed recitals in various Lithuanian towns and in Germany and appeared as a soloist with the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and the Chisinau Philharmonic symphony orchestras, the string section of the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, the Lithuanian and Klaipėda chamber orchestras. He has premiered new works by Lithuanian composers at the contemporary music festivals Gaida and Jauna Muzika in Vilnius. He also performs contemporary repertoire, collaborating with the Gaida Ensemble.

After his engagement as a violist with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, he has been appointed violist with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra in 1996. Since 1997, he has been member of the Vilnius String Quartet. With this quartet he has appeared at all major Lithuanian music festivals and concert halls, as well as on tours at the Merkin Concert Hall and Weill Recital Hall in New York, Moscow P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, Vienna’s Musikverein and Salzburg’s Mozarteum. As its member he also performed alongside the distinguished soloists, such as Mikhail Pletnev, Liana Isakadze, Michel Lethiec, David Geringas, Yuri Bashmet, Mūza Rubackytė, William Bennet and Georg Hörtnagel, among many others. He appears on a number of quartet’s recordings released by various local and international labels. He also contributes to many other recordings as a violist, the most recent of which is the recording of Beethoven’s rediscovered chamber version of the Piano Concerto No. 4, together with pianist Mūza Rubackytė and the Shanghai String Quartet (Warner Classics & Jazz / Lontano, 2009).