Pianist Gabrielius Alekna studied at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre with Professor Liucija Drąsutienė. In 1996, he was invited to continue his studies at the Juilliard School in New York. In 2006, he received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from this school. Gabrielius Alekna has won fourteen competitions, including the L. van Beethoven (Vienna), Hilton Head (USA), Mario Canals (Spain), and M.K. Čiurlionis international competitions. He has performed with the Vienna Radio, Belarus State, Juilliard, and New Amsterdam symphony orchestras. Gabrielius Alekna recorded all of Vytautas Bacevicius's words, published by the British company Toccata Classics, collaborating with twice Grammy-winning producer Judith Sherman and pianist Ursula Oppens, who was nominated for the Grammy Award three times. Since the fall of 2011, Gabrielius Alekna has been a visiting associate professor at the Vytautas Magnus University Academy of Music. In 2011, Gabrielius Alekna performed a concert tour dedicated to M.K. Čiurlionis's centenary of death in ten cities in the USA and Canada. Among his other performances in 2011-2012 were Beethoven's Fifth and Third Concertos in New York with the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, recitals in Italy, Vienna's Musikverein, Bösendorfer Saal and Stadtsalon halls, in the main halls of the Lithuanian and Minsk National Philharmonics, the Liszt in Vredenburg festival in Utrecht (Netherlands), the University of Chicago and New York, Bösendorfer, Yamaha, Deutsches House, Adelphi University recital halls in New York, and others. In 2013, Gabrielius Alekna performed Witold Lutosławski's piano concerto in Minsk with the Belarusian State Symphony Orchestra, held recitals at Carnegie Hall Weill in New York, the National Gallery in Washington, the Polish Institute in Rome, the United Nations Office in Geneva, and various halls and festivals in Lithuania. He recorded Vytautas Bacevicius's piano concertos (conducted by three-time Grammy-nominated Christopher Lyndon-Gee), which will be released by one of the leading international publishing companies, Naxos. Among his chamber music performances in 2012-2013 were concerts with cellists Caroline Stinson and Ann Alton, violinist Bartlomiej Nizioł and the Čiurlionis Quartet. See more about Gabrielius Alekna's work at www.gabrieliusalekna.com.
