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Raminta Šerkšnytė (born 1975) is a Lithuanian composer, pianist and associate professor of composition. She is a laureate of the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts (the highest artistic distinction in Lithuania, in 2008), in 2020 she was nominated (shortlisted) for a Gramophone Classical Music Award. Her De profundis for string orchestra (1998), composed when she was just twenty-two years of age, is one of the most popular and performed Lithuanian compositions across the world. Maestro Gidon Kremer described De profundis as “the calling card of Baltic music”.

Life and career

Raminta Šerkšnytė's creative output ranges from large-scale opera, orchestral compositions to chamber works and pieces for young audience. Her music is distinguished by its poetic nature, powerful emotional impact and its one-of-a-kind beauty created by Baltic mysticism and melancholy. The search for and coexistence of the archetypes from both Western and Eastern cultures are inherent in her music. She has invented her own composing system and called it the “fusion of major and minor”. Of her craft, she states: “I believe that peak experience and spiritual impact is the essence in the art, which can lead to the unforgettable transcendental experience. Composition is an uplifted state of mind materialized by means of sounds, though its impressiveness depends on the composer’s technical mastery".

Raminta Šerkšnytė’s music has been performed by the violinists Gidon Kremer, Irvine Arditti, Hugo Ticciati, conductors Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Mariss Jansons, Giedrė Šlekytė, the Kremerata Baltica Chamber Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and numerous other musicians. The works have been performed at the Lincoln Center (New York), the Wiener Musikverein, the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Berlin Philharmonic, have been featured at the festivals the ISCM World Music Days, the Gaudeamus Music Week, the Baltic Sea Festival, the Lucerne Festival, etc.

Raminta Šerkšnytė’s music is included in releases by Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, BR-Klassik, Sono Luminus and Music Information Centre Lithuania.

Raminta Šerkšnytė was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, into the family of a mathematician and a doctor. She began to study piano and the music theory from an early age. Later, she studied composition under Prof. Osvaldas Balakauskas at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and also in various composers’ masterclasses and workshops abroad. She lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Awards

2020 – nominated and shortlisted for a Gramophone Classical Music Award.
2011 – winner of the composers' competition Le Coup de Coeur des Jeunes Mélomanes (the Prince Pierre Foundation, Monaco, 2011), after being nominated by Arvo Pärt.
2008 – the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts (the highest artistic distinction in Lithuania).
2005 – finalist for the Gaudeamus International Composers Award (Amsterdam)
2005 – Auksinis scenos kryžius/ Golden Stage Cross (recognition as the best Lithuanian theatre composer in 2005)
2005 – Vortex for violin and large ensemble took the 2nd (in the category of composers under 30) and the 3rd position (in the general category) at the International Rostrum of Composers
1995 – first prize for the piece Misterioso for two flutes and double bass at the Juozas Gruodis Composers Competition (Lithuania)