is one of the most radical Lithuanian guitarists, jazz creators, composers, authors of performances. For over 30 years, this conceptualist and experimenter has been exploring the possibilities of the guitar playing solo and in various projects with famous improvisational and electronic music creators and sound artists.
The guitarist entered the Lithuanian jazz sky in 1986 like a whirlwind, stunning the audience with his avalanche of sounds and ideas. He made his debut with the Petros Vyšniauskas Quartet.
At the end of the 1990s, an important platform for creative experiments became a duet for J. Milašius with drummer Dalius Naujokaitis, who currently lives and works in the USA, and "The Lithuanian Young Composers Orchestra" he formed together with like-minded people. The projects of these groups approached the performance genre.
The desire for sound experiments inspired J. Milašiai to assemble the guitar ensembles "Gitarmanija" (1989) and "Auksinės gitaros" (1998), reflected in his solo albums "j.m.eilė" (2002) and "Slow" (2009), recorded with Darius Čiuta in "P " (2016) and in other projects immortalized in the albums "Kab_Lys" (2015), "Sun Sun Up" (2016), "Upė" (2018), "Electric & Acoustic" (2019).
The artist created music for the films "It Snows in Paradise" (1994) and "Journey to the Night" (2003), and together with like-minded people, he staged a play based on Kobo Abe's novel "The Woman in the Sand", in which he acted.
J. Milašius declared his uncompromising style of music playing in the ensembles of Vladimir Čekasin, Vytautas Labutis, Vladimir Tarasov, as well as with Tomas Kutavičius, Skirmantas Sasnauskas, Jonas Mek, Darius Čiutas and other creators of experimental electronic music.
He has participated in international projects with Jim Meneses, Martin Schutz, Hans Koch, Fredy Studer, Sainkho Namtchylak, Ned Rothenberg, Lindsay Cooper, Jimmy Owens, Dror Feiler, Luc Houtkamp, Kouhei Matsunaga, Sabir Mateen, Saadet Turkoz and other renowned artists.
With various ensembles, Milašius played at many jazz and contemporary music and art festivals in Russia, Italy, Poland, Estonia, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Austria.
In 2008, the guitarist's services to Lithuanian jazz were recognized with the "Vilnius Jazz" award.