Muza Rubackyté - Pianist

from the Years of Pilgrimage cycle to work for piano by Čiurlionis,

MŪZA meets all the challenges with elegance and total commitment.

Muza was born in Lituania and lives between Paris, Vilnius and Geneva.

After her studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, she won the famous All Union competition in St Petersburg, designed to elect the best musicians in the USSR, and then the Grand Prize at the Budapest Liszt-Bartók International Piano Competition. Mūza joined the Lithuanian resistance, for which she was deprived of her passport until 1989. Upon her arrival in Paris she won the first prize for piano in the international competition Les Grands Maîtres Français of the Triptyque Association.

Her international career has taken her to recitals and concertos on major stages and festivals in France and on all five continents, where she has crossed paths with renowned conductors and orchestras.

The composer K. Penderecki has regularly invited her to perform his piano concerto Resurrection, a poignant work in homage to the victims of September 11th.

Mūza is a frequent jury member of the most prestigious competitions and an international teacher.

In Lithuania she has received prestigious awards, including the Legion of Honour for the promotion of her country in the world and the Grand Commander's Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great for services to the state.

The Hungarian Ministry of Culture awarded her the Pro Cultura Hungarica prize and she is the President of the Lithuanian Liszt Society LISZtuania.

In 2009 Mūza founded the Vilnius International Piano Festival, of which she is the artistic director. For this achievement, the City of Vilnius honoured her with its highest award: the Saint Christopher's Award for the best cultural event. The next edition will be held in November 2023.

In 2020/22, Mūza will pay tribute to his compatriot, pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky, both on stage and on record, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth near Vilnius. In the 20th century many 'Litvaks' (Lithuanian Jews) were exiled, like Godowsky, who died in New York in 1938.

Mūza's repertoire spans more than forty programmes in recital, concerto with orchestra and chamber music.

Her discography, which includes more than thirty-five titles, is regularly expanded: Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage and Concert Etudes (Lyrinx), Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues (Brilliant Classics), concertos for piano and orchestra by Beethoven, Liszt, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Schnittke, Saint-Saëns, Bartok, Liszt, Schubert/Liszt, Brahms for the Great Lithuanian live recordings series (Doron), Beethoven's Concerto No. 4 chamber version, works for solo piano by Louis Vierne (2015) and with string quartet and voice (2016, Brilliant Classics). Since 2017 she has recorded for the Ligia label Julius Reubke's Sonatas for piano and organ with Olivier Vernet, then, with the Mettis Quartet, a tribute to Shostakovich and Weinberg entitled "Dramatic Russian Legacy". In 2020 it is to his compatriot Leopold Godowsky that Mūza wishes to pay homage, both on stage and on record, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth near Vilnius. This recording, which also includes Preludes by Karol Szymanowsky, has received numerous awards, including Télérama ffff, Diapason d'Or, Classica 5*****. It is followed by this second volume for which the pianist invites the Russian violinist Dmitri Makhtin to join her in a duo.

A Lisztian at heart, she has just won the 41st Grand Prix of the Liszt Society of Budapest for her disc De la valse à l'abîme Schubert / Liszt (Lyrinx).

In 2021, her autobiographic book Born under a piano was published. It recounts with sensitivity her life as an artiste and a politically engaged woman.

Mai 2022-CKSM

LEARN MORE ON: www.muza.fr