VMU Chamber orchestra was established in 2011 at the Music Academy of Vytautas Magnus University. So far it is the only chamber orchestra in the provisional capital of Lithuania called Kaunas. Orchestra constantly organizes and presents new shows not only in the home city Kaunas but also represents Lithuania at various well known festivals abroad. From the very beginning of the formation of the VMU Chamber Orchestra attention was paid to classical music as well as modern music each time in search of a different interpretation. Orchestra is perfoming not only in Kaunas but other towns in Lithuania too aiming to spread the culture all around the country. “It is always important and pleasant to perform in Lithuania, but we are not stopping here – we are successfully performing at the most successful music festivals in Europe and planning to travel even further in the future”, – says Rita Bieliauskaite, the Director of the Orchestra.
VMU Chamber Orchestra was established by most talented performers from Kaunas city gathering together. Today the Orchestra is four years old and during these years it had a pleasure to perform with the Lithuanian musicians/performers like Edmundas Seilius, Merūnas Vitulskis, Liudas Mikalauskas, Evelina Sašenko, Ugnė Tiškutė, Laimonas Salijus and many others. At the various concerts arranged by the VMU Chamber Orchestra and other organizers, Orchestra performed with internationally known musicians too – Konstantin Manaev, violoncello (Germany), Jyotsna Srikanth, violin (India – United Kingdom), Kyeong-jin Lee, violoncello (South Korea) as well as one of the world famous pianist Alexander Paley (USA). Orchestra does not avoid challenges and created different format of performances. Orchestra already performed with the hardly definable genre group ,Liūdni slibinai‘ at several New Yea‘s Eve concerts now, as well as prepared projects with Kaunas Dance Theater “Aura”.
Orchestra constantly participates in festivals in Lithuania and abroad: Euro-Mediterranean Youth Music Expo Festival (Cyprus, 2012), Prestige Festival Schlezwig-Holstein (Germany, 2013), Pažaislis Music Festival (Lithuania), Moder Music Festival “Iš Arti”, International Festival Operetta at Kaunas Catle, K. Čiurlionis Music Festival, International Chamber Music Festival “Avanti”, “Flower Festival”, as well as Kaunas Hanza Days, Culture Night Vilnius.
In 2013 VMU chamber orchestra produced the first CD called “Ekspresija”, and now is preparing new records for another album.
VMU chamber orchestra is one of the most youthful orchestras performing clasical music in Lithuania and not limiting itself with genre and image ‚frames‘ and therefore constantly surprising public with the unexpected choices.
The conductor of the orchestra Jonas Janulevičius started to conduct the orchestra at the begining of 2015. Maestro is also a supreme conducter at Kaunas National Music Theater. Previously he was a conductor of Šiauliai chamber orchestra. In 2015 Jonas Janulevičius was awarded the “Gold scene cross”.
