I have followed Ignas’s career over a number of years since I was invited by Alim Baesembaev’s teacher Tessa Nicholson to hear him play the Mozart Double Concerto together at the Royal Academy Piano Festival .Alim has gone on to win the Gold medal at the Leeds International Piano Competition having had a strong task master behind him to guide his remarkable talent winning first the Junior Van Cliburn Competition and going on to the most highly prized goal of all aspiring pianists.When I first heard them together of course I noticed the remarkable talent of Alim that already had been channelled into a disciplined highly professional performance.Ignas on the other hand I had noticed what remarkable gifts he had but he was still like a wild horse waiting to be tamed.

Piano playing , as Curzon would often say, is 90% hard work and 10 % a God given talent of the blessed few.Ignas has that talent and through the years although I have never actually met him I feel as though I got to know him ever more through his performances.As he mentions me in his very open and honest interval discussion (which can be seen in the link here :https://youtube.com/live/RkpJGXuzQ0c?feature=shared). I feel I can also reply in kind.His interval discussion revealed the same open and innocent person of youthful humility that I have come to know through his music.I hope one day that we will meet in person and add a few well chosen words to our musical acquaintanceship.It was lovely to hear about his musical family and the trio he has formed with his brother and sister who are also studying at my old Alma Mater.Another brother too studying Liberal Arts in California where brother and sister have been to perform Brahms violin sonatas.It has left me curious to know more about their mother and father.

I have known quite a few Lithuanian musicians studying in the UK Rokas Valutuonis,Milda Daunoraite and Gabrielé Sutkuté all blessed with an openness ,simplicity and all playing with a wonderful natural fluidity that gives such luminosity to their playing.I am reminded too of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra under Saulius Sondekis playing in my Euromusic Season that I organised for thirty years in Rome.I have never heard an orchestra play so quietly or musically as in Shostakovich 10th Symphony or as colourfully as in Busoni’s arrangement of the Spanish Rhapsody with Mikhail Petukhov playing also as an encore with strings of gossamer lightness in the Wedding Cake Caprice by Saint Saens.

Since coming to London Ignas has realised the responsability he has to his talent and has begun to dedicate all the hours necessary and it has been a huge privilege to see his talent blossom and to hear the arrival of a great artist at the Wigmore Hall just a few months ago.It was with pleasure that in his open discussion he had interpreted my words of ‘responsability to his great talent ‘ as meaning maturing from a carefree student in the great metropolis to a mature artist aware of the burden that he bears and the sacrifice he has to make as he dedicates his youth to his art.

Hats off dear Ignas I am full of admiration for you as a person and as an artist ….onwards and upwards the world awaits ! Sacrifice it may have been but what rewards await you !