Akvilė Šileikaitė

The pianist, painter, and photographer Akvilė Šileikaitė, who was born in 1992 in Širvintos, Lithuania, studied piano with Tatjana Romashkina and Daumantas Kirilauskas in Vilnius and painting with Loreta Laurinavičienė in Klaipėda. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in solo piano from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater in 2015 and then moved to the Zurich University of the Arts, where she studied with Friedemann Rieger and Peter Solomon. Her repertoire ranges from Baroque to contemporary music and also includes several rarities. Akvilė Šileikaitė has been part of the duo Akmi with the French saxophonist Valentine Michaud since 2015. They have performed together at London's Wigmore Hall and at Lavaux Classic; they won the Orpheus Swiss Chamber Music Competition in 2016, took second place at the Salieri-Zinetti International Chamber Music Competition in Verona in 2018, and received the Swiss Ambassador's Award in 2019. She also works regularly with the percussionist Fabian Ziegler. Šileikaitė has performed as a soloist and with various chamber music ensembles in Switzerland, Germany, France, and Russia, including at Vienna's Musikverein, the Gasteig in Munich, the Zurich Tonhalle, and Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Conservatory, and she has been a guest at such festivals as the Tage für Neue Musik Zürich and the Davos Festival. In addition, she has performed as an extra with such orchestras as the Zurich Tonhalle and has worked with conductors including Peter Eötvös, Matthias Pintscher, Paavo Järvi, and David Zinman. As a visual artist, Akvilė Šileikaitė has been shown in exhibitions throughout Europe. She has received several awards for her paintings and photographic works, including from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and Lithuania’s Queen Morta Prize.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 17 August 2017 with Valentine Michaud in a program of works by Denisov, Hindemith, Schulhoff, and Albright.

August 2020