Martina Kučinskaitė–who just completed her Master’s in Piano Performance–has been extremely busy and productive during the pandemic, maintaining a steady practice regimen at the college, where she has been allowed access privileges given her lack of an instrument or an adequate practice space, and, recently, entering several international piano competitions and finding great success. Here’s her story: “Extracurricular activities have inspired me throughout my whole life while studying piano performance. Piano competitions have felt like an extra impetus motivating me to reach for better quality in my performance and gave a greater purpose in addition to mandatory schoolwork. During the past year and a half, it has been a great challenge for all performers to keep our spirits up. When live concerts, competitions, master classes and even weekly piano classes transferred to online format, it sometimes felt as if there was no point of trying to achieve the same results as before. Online lessons eventually became tiring for everyone, and the goals of academic year adjusted to more realistic levels – to learn assigned pieces, pass exams and graduate. Not being able to have in-person lessons, we have gotten used to recording ourselves a lot more often than before. Even though relying on recordings was certainly a very different experience from what everyone expected coming to study performing arts, it rewarded us with a lot of insight monitoring our own performances. It also offered our professors a different and often a more objective and detailed look into our playing. “When the pandemic started, most competitions were cancelled or delayed indefinitely, but eventually some of them transitioned into online format. Despite the live performance experience being taken away, motivation to strive for better performance through recording prevailed. Online competitions proved to be a good substitute to keep performers engaged with our craft while staying safe during the global pandemic. It has been a true joy for me to participate in several competitions, described below. I feel grateful that my piano professor Gabrielius Alekna has always motivated and supported me. I was also fortunate to have great pieces in my program, which were eligible in these competitions and allowed me to experience the thrill of participating again. “The International online competition “Astana-Stars” takes place every month since 2020 Fall. Each competition is dedicated to the different composer and the title of the competition slightly variates every month. The competition holds a lot of various nominations, such as for organ, piano, general piano, string instruments, wind instruments, percussion instruments, folk instruments and instrumental ensembles. I participated in this competition twice. The first one, in December 2020, was dedicated to the 180th anniversary of the birth of Tchaikovsky. I presented a recording of John Corigliano’s piece called Winging It (1st and 3rd movements) and won the Grand Prix. The second time, in May 2021, my submission was Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso (from Miroirs) and I was awarded the first prize. This time the competition was called “El Gran Astor”, for the 100th anniversary of the birth of Astor Piazzolla. http://www.astana-stars.com/astana-vision-contest-10-04-2021-en/ “Another international competition in which I recently participated is called “Virtuosos”. It started in 2016 and takes place in Saratov, Russia. The competition is organized by a private music school in this city and initially only accepted submissions from Saratov residents. Last year the competition opened its doors for participants from all over Russia, and since October 2020 it grew into an international competition. There are many categories for participants in this competition, starting with the age of 5, the highest category being 20 years old and up. Eligible participants are not only pianists, but all instrumentalists, vocalists, various chamber ensembles, jazz performers and composers. I participated in this competition twice as well – first time with John Corigliano’s Winging It (2nd and 3rd movements) back in February 2021 and second time with M. Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso (from Miroirs) in May 2021. For these submissions I was awarded the third and then the first prizes. https://virtuozy.online/ The Conservatory is extremely proud of Martyna’s accomplishments during this trying time and salutes both her perseverance and the fine work of Prof. Alekna to feed her voracious musical appetite in achieving these successes on the international stage. We’re confident that Martyna will continue to thrive beyond her studies and establish herself as a prominent artist, given her discipline and capabilities.
