Martyna Jatkauskaite

By her 25th birthday Martyna Jatkauskaite had become recognized as one of the leading Lithuanian pianists from the younger generation. Ironically, much of her career success has been in the U.K. where she did her advanced keyboard studies. Winner of several important international competitions, Jatkauskaite has consistently impressed critics with both her technical skills and masterly sense of interpretation in a broad range of repertory that takes in works by Domenico Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and many others. She performs regularly throughout the U.K., Lithuania, Italy, and other parts of Europe and has given recitals at such prestigious venues as London's Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, and Barbican Hall. Martyna Jatkauskaite was born into a musical family in Kaunas, Lithuania, on July 7, 1984. She studied at the J. Naujalis Music College in Kaunas, where her teachers included Birute Kumpikiene. Before and during her early student years she won a number of competitions, including the Konzerteum '98 in Greece, 2000 International Piano Competition Roma, and the Vilnius-based Vainiunas International Piano Competition in 2001. Jatkauskaite had further studies at the Lithuanian Music and Drama Academy under Veronika Vitaite, who headed the piano faculty. In 2005 Jatkauskaite traveled to England for further study at the Guildhall School of Music in accordance with her award of the Baltic State Scholarship, given to her following an acclaimed performance of the Prokofiev Third Concerto. At Guildhall she earned a bachelor's degree (2007) and master's (2009). Her teachers there included Joan Havill. While a student in England Jatkauskaite won the 2006 Tunbridge Wells International Young Concert Artists Competition and London-based Jacques Samuel Intercollegiate Piano Competition in 2007. Capturing first prize in the latter event was a watershed achievement, as it provided Jatkauskaite with a debut recital appearance at Wigmore Hall in 2008, as well as other prestigious concert engagements. Jatkauskaite captured both the audience prize and second prize at the 2009 Citta di Cantu International Competition for piano and orchestra, for her performance of the Prokofiev Third. In 2010 Jatkauskaite was awarded the Gold Medal by the Guildhall School of Music, that institution's highest honor regularly given to a musician. She was also made a fellow at Guildhall. In 2011 Jatkauskaite won the Giorgios Thymis International Piano Competition in Greece. That same year saw the release of her first CD, a self-produced effort containing works by Schumann, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninov.