Internationally acclaimed pianist Rasa Vitkauskaite joins us in live performance with works of Mikalojus Konstantinos Čiurlionis, Carlos Guastavino, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, and Moritz Moszkowski for this Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert broadcast. This concert will air on Facebook Live at 12:15 pm, and then on WFMT at 8:00 p.m.
Hailed for “artistry of poetic and observant sensitivity” (Gramophone), internationally acclaimed pianist Rasa Vitkauskaite will release her debut concerto CD later this season featuring Mozart’s Concerto No. 20 in D Minor and Beethoven’s Concerto No. 3 in C Minor. Her debut solo CD Reflections on Ongaku Records—featuring works by Beethoven, Ravel, Guastavino and Liebermann—was highlighted on the cover of Fanfare Magazine, which praised her “scintillating pianism” and dubbed her “a Beethoven interpreter of penetrating insight.” Last season featured Ms. Vitkauskaite’s debut recording as soloist with orchestra performing Liszt/Weber Polonaise brillante recorded at the Hungarian National Radio.
Winner of the Grand Prix at the Mendelssohn Cup Piano Competition in Italy, Rasa Vitkauskaite has won top prizes at numerous prestigious international piano competitions including First Prizes at Les Rencontres Internationales des Jeunes Pianistes (Belgium), the competition in Taurisano (Italy), and the Rubinstein Piano Competition (Paris). Other awards include the Westmont Fellowship at Montecito International Music Festival in Santa Barbara, California, and a Kathryn Wasserman Davis $10,000 grant supporting a concert tour of Israel. Ms. Vitkauskaite has also garnered top prizes at six national competitions in her native country of Lithuania.
Recent recital tours have taken Ms. Vitkauskaite to China, South Korea, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, and across the United States. Her solo engagements include the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra, Budapest Sinfonia, Kaunas, Latvian and Kaliningrad Philharmonic orchestras, I Solisti di Perugia, and the Boston Conservatory Orchestra. She has appeared at festivals in Assisi (Italy), Madrid (Spain), Mexico City, Caracas (Venezuela), Taiyuan (China), Porto (Portugal), Moscow (Russia), and throughout the United States.
An avid chamber musician, Ms. Vitkauskaite performs regularly with acclaimed clarinet soloist Jonathan Cohler, and has collaborated with Tchaikovsky gold medal violinist Ilya Kaler, world-renowned violinist, chamber musician and teacher James Buswell, University of Maryland professor violinist Irina Muresanu, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra cellist Julia Bruskin, and long-time Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinetist Franklin Cohen. Ms. Vitkauskaite is the long-serving, critically acclaimed pianist of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Meiningen Trio.
Ms. Vitkauskaite studied with Jūratė Karosaitė at the National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Arts in Vilnius, Lithuania, from which she graduated with honors. She won a scholarship to attend United World College of the Adriatic in Italy, where she studied with Alberto Miodini. Upon graduating, she was awarded the prestigious International Baccalaureate Diploma with highest grades in music. Subsequently, she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at The Boston Conservatory, where she studied with Michael Lewin and won the H. Wilfred Churchill piano scholarship competition both in 2007 and 2008. She also completed a Graduate Performance Diploma under Randall Hodgkinson.
In addition to her active performing career, Ms. Vitkauskaite is a dedicated teacher and adjudicator. She teaches at Concord Conservatory and in her private studio, and frequently leads masterclasses worldwide including most recently at Ohio University, University of Akron, National University of Rosario in Argentina, Carlos Gomes State Institute in Brazil, and Longy School of Music of Bard College.
Biography courtesy of IMF Chicago.