Raimondas Butvila was born in Šiauliai in 1956. In 1963, he entered M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art (now M. K. Čiurlionis School of Arts) and graduated in 1974. During this time he became the winner of the international J. Kocian Young Violinists' Competition in Czechoslovakia and the laureate of the Lithuanian Young Violinists' Competition. He was also a soloist during the school orchestra's concert tour in the Netherlands and Belgium. From 1974 to 1979, Raimondas studied at the Lithuanian State Conservatory (now Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre) in the violin class of Professor Eugenijus Paulauskas. As a student of this conservatory, he became a laureate of the Interrepublican Young Performers' Competition in Tallinn (1976) and a diploma winner of the All-Union Young Performers' Competition in Lviv (1977). From 1979 to 1981, Raimondas completed his postgraduate studies at the P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, in the class of Professor V. Klimov.
After returning to Lithuania, Raimondas began teaching at the Lithuanian Academy of Music, worked in the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and the Lithuanian State Quartet, became the first concertmaster of the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra and performed many concerts as a soloist. He cooperated extensively with Lithuanian composers, inspiring and premiering many new works. In 1990, Raimondas was awarded the title of Honored Artist of Lithuania.
In 1993, under the Lithuanian-Venezuelan agreement of creative collaboration, he went to this South American country, where he worked with young musicians in the sistema orchestras. He was also the Music Director of Emilio Friedman College and a professor of the Arts University (UNEARTE) in Caracas, and over the course of 18 years, he trained several generations of professional musicians. Raimondas often played with Venezuelan orchestras and was a member of the Trio Academico Emil Friedman.
Since 2007, Raimondas has been collaborating intensively with pianist Dr. Zecharia Plavin, with whom he presents a varied repertoire, including performances of sonatas by J. Gruodis and K. V. Banaitis. In 2009, they performed two sonatas for violin and piano by Ernest Bloch at the World Hebrew University Congress (Israel), and in 2015, they performed this composer's violin concerto with the San Diego Tifferet Israel Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, the duo held a concert at the renowned New York Piano Academy (NYPA).
In 2011, Raimondas returned to Lithuania and became a professor at Vytautas Magnus University Music Academy, the head of the string instrument department, and a active concert performer. Since 2013, he has been collaborating extensively with his former classmate in Moscow, the world-renowned virtuoso pianist Alexander Paley, with whom he is organizing recitals in Lithuania and France. They perform monographic programs of the most famous composers in the most prestigious concert halls in Lithuania. They have already played the entire chamber music of S. Prokofiev, E. Grieg, and J. Brahms for violin and piano.
