Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė

The Lithuanian cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė is a prize-winner of several national competitions and performs as a soloist with renowned chamber and symphony orchestras in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. She is also a regular guest at festivals in Lithuania and abroad, including the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the International Shostakovich Days in Gohrisch, Argerich’s Meeting Point in Beppu and December Nights in Moscow. She has worked with conductors such as Andrey Boreyko, Mario Brunello, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, András Keller, Roman Kofman, Lio Kuokman, Andres Mustonen, Gintaras Rinkevičius, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Saulius Sondeckis.

Highlights of the 2024/25 season include(d) her debut with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and appearances at Munich’s Herkulessaal, New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Salzburg Festival.

She is passionate about contemporary music and has given world premieres of works by Giya Kancheli, Victor Kissine, Arturs Maskats and Victoria Poleva. With Gidon Kremer, one of her closest musical partners, she has performed Glass’s Double Concerto for Violin and Violoncello in Japan, Korea, Russia, Spain and France.

In chamber music she has performed with musicians including Valery Afanassiev, Yuri Bashmet, Mate Bekavac, Yefim Bronfman, Sa Chen, Seong-Jin Cho, Evgeny Kissin, Oleg Maisenberg, Heinz Holliger, Michel Portal and Andrius Žlabys.

Since 1997 she has been a member of Kremerata Baltica, founded by Gidon Kremer. Since 2008 she has been the principal cellist with this chamber orchestra, and participated in more than thirty recordings. Other albums with Gidon Kremer include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Georgijs Osokins (Accentus Music), Weinberg: Chamber Music with Yulianna Avdeeva and Preghiera — Rachmaninoff Piano Trios with Daniil Trifonov (Deutsche Grammophon). Their disc of Tchaikovsky and Kissine piano trios with Khatia Buniatishvili (ECM) was awarded the German Record Critics’ Award.

Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė studied at the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy in Vilnius and participated in inspirational masterclasses with Hatto Beyerle, Tatjana Grindenko, David Geringas, Mstislav Rostropovich and the Hagen Quartet.

She plays a violoncello made by Matteo Goffriller in 1710.