VMU Chamber orchestra
Founded in 2011 at the Music Academy of Vytautas Magnus University, the VMU Chamber Orchestra is the only professional chamber orchestra in Kaunas. It was established not only to promote the culture of classical music and its contemporary interpretations in the temporary capital, but also to represent Lithuania, Kaunas, and the University at an international level and to promote them abroad.
The orchestra has performed at numerous concerts in Lithuania and abroad. It participated in the Euro-Mediterranean Youth Music Expo 2012 festival in the Republic of Cyprus and, in 2013, made its debut at the prestigious Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, where it captivated an audience of thousands. In 2017, the ensemble toured the United States together with saxophonist Liutauras Janušaitis.
The orchestra has performed with renowned Lithuanian and international artists, including Merūnas Vitulskis, Liudas Mikalauskas, Evelina Sašenko, Liutauras Janušaitis, Saulius Petreikis and his band, Verena Rein (soprano, Germany), Jyotsna Srikanth (violin, India–United Kingdom), Shadrach Solomon (piano, India), Alexander Paley (piano, USA), Konstantin Manaev (cello, Russia), the band Liūdni slibinai, and the Kaunas Dance Theatre Aura. It has also participated in opera productions and in the video game music project GameOn Live, performed with other recognised and emerging talents from Kaunas, Lithuania and abroad, and released a CD of works by Lithuanian composers entitled “Ekspresija.”
The orchestra organises the international chamber music festival “Avanti”, which took place for the 14th time in 2025. At the 2019 festival, for the first time in Lithuania’s history, it brought together the professional chamber orchestras of Vilnius, Klaipėda and Kaunas for a single event.
The Orchestra’s repertoire is characterised by a diversity of musical styles and genres. While fully recognising the importance of classical music, the orchestra is always open to unexpected experiments and the combining of seemingly incompatible elements, and therefore continually embarks on new projects, collaborating with artists from all fields of the arts.
As the orchestra continually sought new ideas and possibilities for musical interpretation, its conductors also changed over time, including Artistic Director and Conductor Robertas Bliškevičius (2011 – 2014) and Chief Conductor Jonas Janulevičius (2015 – early 2019). Professional conductors who have appeared at the conductor’s stand with the VMU Chamber Orchestra include Ričardas Šumila, Vytautas Lukočius, Karolis Variakojis, Egidijus Miknius, Giedrius Vaznys, Petras Bingelis, Ivan Ostapovych (Ukraine), and Vladimir Ponkin (Russia). Since autumn 2019, Vytautas Lukočius has served as the orchestra’s Chief Conductor.
