Giedre Dirvanauskaite

Cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė is a founding member of the influential Kremerata Baltica ensemble. She also has flourishing careers as a soloist and chamber player. Dirvanauskaitė was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1976. She grew up in a musical family and did her undergraduate studies at the M.K. Čiurlionis National School of Arts in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, studying there with Romanas Armonas and graduating in 1995. She went on for further study at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater with Silvija Sondeckienė and rounded out her education by attending master classes with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and violinist Gidon Kremer, whom she married, among others. Dirvanauskaitė performed with the Vilnius Quartet at its Vilnius Quartet and Young Talents event. Dirvanauskaitė was a founding member of Kremer's Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra in 1997 and remains its principal cellist. She has performed with various symphony orchestras across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Dirvanauskaitė's list of chamber music collaborators is especially impressive, including pianist Martha Argerich, oboist Heinz Holliger, and pianist Daniil Trifonov. She is a familiar face at summer festivals, including those in Gstaad, Switzerland, Beppu, Japan, and Gohrisch, Germany, and she participates annually in the Gidon Kremer Chamber Music Festival in Lockenhaus, Austria. Dirvanauskaitė has made several acclaimed chamber music recordings. In 2011, she joined Kremer and pianist Khatia Buniatishvili on an ECM recording of piano trios by Tchaikovsky and Victor Kissine. She was heard on the 2014 compendium Mieczyslaw Weinberg, which earned a Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium. In 2017, Dirvanauskaitė, Kremer, and Trifonov issued an album of music by Rachmaninov, returning to the label two years later for a new album of Weinberg's chamber music. In 2020, Dirvanauskaitė moved to the Accentus label for an album featuring trios by Chopin and Beethoven (from the latter, the trio arrangement by Carl Reinecke of the Triple Concerto, Op. 56). ~ James Manheim