The Lithuanian pianist Gaiva Bandzinaite discovered her affinity to vocal literature through German and French poetry.
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After finishing her concert piano studies in Vilnius with honours, she pursued her passion and studied Lied accompaniment in Graz. Upon finishing her studies there, she received the Furtherance Prize awarded by the Austrian minister of culture.
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Since 1995 she teaches in the vocal department of the Mozarteum.
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In numerous concert appearances Gaiva Bandzinaite has accompanied such singers as Violeta Urmana, Wolfgang Holzmair, Maria Nazarova (in the Musikverein Vienna), Birgit Steinberger, Jekaterina Tretjakova (in the Konzerthaus Vienna), Konrad Jarnot (in the Gasteig Munich and in London), and Bernd Lambauer. Furthermore she has appeared in diverse festivals (the Festival du Lied Fribourg, the Thomas-Mann Festival, the “Vilnius Festival” and the Festival Ljubljana amongst others), and has performed at Lincoln Center New York, at the Hugo Wolf House Slovenj Gradec, in the Musikverein Graz, and in the Philharmonic Halls in both Ljubljana and Vilnius.
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In 2003/2004 she recorded the entire Lied oeuvre of the Slovenian composer M. Kogoj with the singer Barbara Jernejcic-Fürst. She was recording director for the aria album “Tenore di forza” with Kristian Benedikt, which appeared in 2019.
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The pianist has worked with such singers as Sir Willard White and Inge Borkh. Furthermore she has accompanied master classes held by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Thomas Hampson, Christa Ludwig, Brigitte Fassbaender, Lilian Sukis, Kurt Widmer, Breda Zakotnik, and Helmut Deutsch.
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She is an official accompanist for singers of the International Mozart Competition, and within the Salzburg Festival was directress of studies for the Young Singers Project.
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Bandzinaite has on numerous occasions been invited to serve as solo coach at the State Opera Vilnius, she holds a guest professorship at the University of Kaunas, and in addition gives master classes at the Music Academy Vilnius. Invitations to master classes at the Accademia del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino followed as well, after she was a juror at the pianist competition at Teatro del Maggio Musicale in autumn 2020.
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She has been active as a répétiteuse in productions in Luxembourg and in the Theater an der Wien, and in such festivals as the Salzburg Festival, the Steirischer Herbst and the Styriarte.
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A further interest of the pianist concerns the combined efforts of diverse art-forms.
For example she has appeared in a concert series of the Konzerthaus Vienna (O-Ton) together with the author Margriet de Moor and the singer Johanna von der Deken.
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In her capacity as member of the Künstlervereinigung Varwe Musica she was also director at the Palais Wittgenstein in Vienna of a symposium that explored the mutual relationship between painting and music in the twentieth century.