Jury - M. K. Čiurlionis Competitions

French-Lithuanian pianist MŪZA RUBACKYTĖ born in Lithuania and now lives in Paris, Vilnius and Geneva. A graduate of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, she was a prize-winner in the back then famous All Union Competition in St. Petersburg (which was held to elect the best musicians in the USSR) and then the Grand Prize in the International Liszt-Bartók Piano Competition in Budapest. Mūza joined the Lithuanian resistance, for which she was deprived of her passport until 1989. Upon her arrival in France, she studied with prof. Y. Lorriod and prof. G. Mounier, and won the first prize for piano in the international competition Les Grands Maîtres Français.

Her international career has led her to play recitals and concerts on major stages and festivals in France and on all of the continents, where her path crosses with great conductors and renowned orchestras. The composer K. Penderecki has regularly invited her to perform his piano concerto Resurrection, a poignant work as homage to the victims of the September 11th. Mūza is frequently asked to join the jury at the most prestigious international competitions. In 2022, she was appointed as a president of the jury of the Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians. A renowned pedagogue, she is a professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and at the M. Rostropovich Foundation. She has received prestigious Lithuanian national awards: The Legion of Honour for the promotion of her country in the world and the Grand Commander's Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great for services rendered to the State, the St. Christopherʼs Award for her cultural and creative activities and artistic direction of the Vilnius International Piano Festival (which nearest upcoming events will be held in 2023); in Hungary she was awarded by the Ministry of Culture with the Pro Cultura Hungarica prize. She is president of the Lithuanian Liszt Society LISZtuania.

Mūza's repertoire spans over more than forty programmes in the recital, concertos and chamber music. Her discography, which includes nearly thirty records, has been regularly enriched. A Lisztian at heart, as she describes herself, she won the 41st Grand Prix of the Liszt Society of Budapest for her De la valse à l'abîme records in which – the music by R. Schubert and F. Liszt (Lyrinx). In 2021, her autobiographical book Born under a piano (Tyto Alba) was published, on account of a fascinating life as a humanist woman and international artist. In her discography – the Pilgrimage Years and the Transcendental Études by F. Liszt (Lyrinx), 24 preludes and fugues by D. Shostakovich (Brilliant Classics), piano concertos by L. van Beethoven, F. Liszt, D. Shostakovich, S. Prokofiev, A. Schnittke, C. Saint-Saëns for the Great Lithuanian Live Recordings series (Doron), L. van Beethoven's Concerto No. 4 (chamber version), both solo piano works and those accompanied together by string quartet and voice by L. Vierne (Brilliant Classics). In 2017 together with Olivier Vernet she recorded Julius Reubke's sonatas for piano and organ (Ligia). In 2019 two new records where released: the Vol. 6 of the Great Lithuanian Live Recordings devoted to the orchestral works by B. Bartok, F. Liszt and F. Schubert (Doron) and the other one recorded together with the Mettis string quartet as a tribute to D. Shostakovich and M. Weinberg entitled Dramatic Russian Legacy (Ligia). In 2020 she brought together Leopold Godowsky (his immense and rare Sonata) and Karol Szymanowsky and received the best reviews: records were awarded with Télérama ffff, Diapason d'Or, ***** Classica, as well was the Valses et impressions, where she played chamber music pieces by the same composers together with violinist Dmitri Makhtin (both albums were published under the label of Ligia). Her latest CD released in 2021 is devoted to the two piano concertos by J. Brahms (Doron).