Jury

Prof. RIMANTAS ARMONAS  

Professor Rimantas Armonas graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in 1975, under the guidance of Prof. Silvija Sondeckienė (a student of Mstislav Rostropovich). He continued his studies at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the class of the Tchaikovsky Competition laureate, Prof. Valentin Feigin. In 1980, he won first prize at the International Cello Competition in Minsk. Since 1978, he has been teaching at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, where he is a professor in the String Instruments Department. From 2011 to 2019, he taught at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. Between 1986 and 1988, he taught at the National Institute of Music in Algeria (L’Institut National de Musique d’Algérie). From 2000 to 2011, he was the Head of the String Instruments Department at the Kaunas branch of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Since 2018, he has served as the chair of the Chamber Music Department at the same institution. 

Rimantas Armonas is one of the most distinguished Lithuanian cellists. In 2018, he received the Culture and Art Prize from the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. He regularly performs as a soloist and as a member of various chamber ensembles. He has performed in Germany, Canada, Japan, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Hungary, Singapore, Sweden, Algeria, and other countries. He has participated in prestigious classical and contemporary music festivals in Lithuania and abroad, including the Third International Cello Congress in Kobe, Japan. He has performed with numerous symphony and chamber orchestras in Lithuania and Belarus, including under the baton of S. Sondeckis, M. Dvarionaitė, D. Katkus, J. Domarkas, S. Domarkas, M. Pitrenas, M. Barkauskas (Lithuania); P. Berman (Spain – Italy), O. Grangean (France), N. Engelbrecht and E. Leonov (Belarus), and B. Raisky (Russia). 

Rimantas Armonas is a member of ARMONAS TRIO and ARMONAS – USS DUO. A concert performed by Armonas Trio at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall on October 3, 2003, was broadcast in 17 countries by Euroradio. Rimantas Armonas conducts masterclasses and interpretive seminars at music colleges in Finland (1991-92), Belarus (1994, 2003, 2004), Latvia (1996, 2015, Academia Baltica’ 97), the Netherlands (2001), France (2010), Germany (2003-2012), Poland (2010-2023), and Sweden (2004, 2006). He has served on the juries of international competitions in Poland, Belarus, Moldova, and Lithuania. His repertoire includes numerous premieres of works by contemporary composers from various countries. He is an active performer of new Lithuanian music and has prepared over 50 world premieres of contemporary Lithuanian composers. He has frequently recorded for Lithuanian and foreign radio stations and has produced numerous recordings in various countries. 

Dr. Hab. Tomasz Lisiecki, Prof. AMP

Born in Bydgoszcz, he began learning to play the cello at the age of 7. He graduated with honors from the A. Rubinstein State Music School in Bydgoszcz in the class of Prof. Agata Jarecka. In 1999, he graduated with honors from the I.J. Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań, studying under Prof. Stanisław Pokorski. After his studies, he continued his education with Prof. Kazimierz Michalik in Warsaw. He also honed his skills at courses with Roman Jabłoński, Zaria Nelsova, and Victoria Yagling. From 2003 to 2005, he studied at the Universität der Künste in Berlin in the baroque cello class of Markus Möllenbeck and Phoebe Carrai. He further developed his skills in early music performance at masterclasses at the Bach–Händel Akademie in Karlsruhe with Phoebe Carrai and Jaap ter Linden. In 2012, he obtained his doctorate in arts based on a dissertation devoted to the chamber music of F. Chopin and X. Scharwenka, and in 2019, he received his habilitation degree. He teaches cello at the Academy of Music in Poznań and has been a visiting professor at the Conservatorio C. Monteverdi in Bolzano since 2022.

Tomasz Lisiecki is among the cellists who combine performance practice in the repertoire of romantic, contemporary, and early music. He performs with numerous ensembles and orchestras in Poland and abroad.

Alongside his artistic and concert work, Tomasz Lisiecki also engages in extensive pedagogical activities. His students have won numerous international and national cello competitions. He has conducted masterclasses, including at the European Center for Krzysztof Penderecki in Lusławice, during the Summer Music Academy in Żagań, Master Cello Courses in Szamotuły, and the Young Musician Summer Academy in Debrecen, Hungary. In 2006 and 2010, he was honored with the City of Poznań President’s Award for his teaching work, and in 2018, he received the Medal of the National Education Commission for his outstanding contributions to education and upbringing. For twenty years, he has organized Master Cello Courses and the International Chamber Music Festival named after Philipp and Xaver Scharwenka in Szamotuły, together with pianist Paweł Mazur. Tomasz Lisiecki is also the president of the Pro Cello Foundation, established in 2007 to support young Polish cellists.

Prof. Justus Grimm

Justus Grimm received his first introductory cello lessons at the age of five at first from his father, followed by studies with Ulrich Voss, Claus Kanngiesser and later with Frans Helmerson in Stockholm and Cologne. 

He proved his outstanding talent in various competitions. Playing alongside the pianist Florian Wiek, he also won the first prize in the Maria Canals music competition in Barcelona and was also awarded the prize of the German Music Council. 

Justus Grimm’s solo and chamber music performances took him throughout Europe. The beginning of his career in 1993 was marked by his splendid performance as a soloist in the première by Matthias Pintscher’s cello concert “La Metamorfosi di Narciso” with the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra and continued to maintain his solo performance in cooperation with many other orchestras, including the English Chamber Orchestra, the London Chamber Orchestra, the Ukrainian National Orchestra, the Lithuanian National Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de la Monnaie, the Bonn Classical Philharmonic or the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt. 

As part of his performances, Justus Grimm was already a guest in many of the most renowned concert halls in the world like the Berlin Philharmonic, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Cologne Philharmonic, the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, the Atheneum Bucarest, the Munich Hercules Hall or the Cultural Centre in Lisbon. 

In 2012 his performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations” with the Orchestre Symphonique de la Monnaie conducted by Carlo Rizzi was broadcast live from the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels as part of a TV production. 

Justus Grimm made his remarkable chamber music career together with renowned artists like Abdel Raman El Bacha, Gerard Caussé, Augustin Dumay or Stephen Kovacevich. He accepted invitations to major festivals, including the Ludwigsburg Festspiele, the Festival van Vlaanderen, Festival Musiq3, Lisbon’s Dias da Musica, the Florilegio Salamanca Festival, SoNoRo Romania, Thy Chambermusic Festival, Forte Music Fest Almaty, Storioni Festival Eindhoven, Cantiere Di Montepulciano, Brussel’s Klara Music Festival or the Chiemgau Musikfrühling. 

Besides live recordings by many European radio stations there are already numerous CD records. Worth mentioning here is a CD, Trio Wiek (Christina Fassbender, Justus Grimm and Florian Wiek) with works by Philippe Gaubert, who was awarded a 5/5 rating by the French magazine Diapaison. 

2012 saw the recording with earlier works by George Enescu that was highly acclaimed by the international press and shortly thereafter a complete recording of the chamber music works by Cesar Franck, which was awarded the Prix Cecilia as the best CD of the year 2012 by the Belgian press. 

  

Teaching plays a central role in the artistic life of Justus Grimm. Following tutorship at the Brussels Chapelle Reine Elisabeth  (2002-2003) and at the Institut Superieur de Musique de Namur (2003-2008), he held the title as professor for violoncello at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp in 2008, where he acts also as  the Artistical Director since 2013.

He plays a violoncello dated 1760 of P.A. Testore. 

During the season 2022/2023 Justus Grimm has joined International Festivals/Concerts as soloist and teacher in Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Romania, Germany, Poland or Lithuania. TwoCD-releases are foreseen for French and German Labels with works of Francis Poulenc and the Concertino of Hans Gál with Riga Sinfonietta.