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Modestas Pitrėnas (b. 1974) is one of the most successful Lithuanian conductors of his generation. He has already established himself internationally through his extensive collaborations with various orchestras and opera houses in Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Poland, Germany and Finland. He made his international debut with Mozart’s Magic Flute at the Cologne Opera and since then has worked as music director in the opera productions at the Finnish National Opera, Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa in Warsaw, Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Aalto Theater in Essen, the Stuttgart Opera, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, and the Theater Basel. He was music director and conductor in the production of Wagner’s Rienzi at the Latvian National Opera (directed by Kirsten Delholm), which opened the programme of Riga – European Capital of Culture 2014 and became one of its high points.
Having completed his tenures as Chief Conductor of the Kaunas Symphony Orchestra (2006–11) and Latvian National Opera in Riga (2009–14), he took over as Principal Conductor and Artistic
Director of the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra in Vilnius from his former professor Juozas Domarkas in 2015. Since the 2018/2019 season, Modestas Pitrėnas has been also appointed Principal Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra and the Theater St. Gallen, Switzerland.
He has a BA in choir and opera conducting from the Mozarteum University in Salzburg where he studied with Prof. Walter Hagen-Groll and Prof. Karl Kamper (1995–1996), an MA in choir conducting (1997) and a licentiate of arts (2004) in orchestral and opera conducting from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre where he studied with Prof. Lionginas Abarius and Prof. Juozas Domarkas. In addition to many other conducting competitions, Pitrėnas participated in the 7th Grzegorz Fitelberg Conducting Competition in Katowice (Poland, 2003) where he garnered 1st Prize, Gold Medal and Special Prize of the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra. That same year he was appointed Associate Professor at the LAMT in Vilnius where he also served as head of the Conducting Department from 2015 and was invited to serve in the juries of various conducting competitions.
His recordings of choral, symphonic and operatic repertoire are featured on more than 15 CDs. In recognition of his interpretation of the classical and contemporary Lithuanian music, he was awarded the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Art in 2012. For his contribution to the Latvian musical culture he was awarded with several Latvian music prizes and decorated with the Cross of Recognition by the President of Latvia. He is the recipient of the Baltic Assembly Prize for the Arts (2015) and the Officer’s Cross of the Order for Merits to Lithuania (2019).
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