VYTAUTAS STRAIŽYS — STAGE INTRODUCTION

To be read aloud when introducing the artist at a concert or festival.
Around 50 seconds.

He sat down at the piano at seven. At nine he won his first international competition — and
it was in that final that he first played with an orchestra. From eleven he was performing
with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra.

Jazz was in his family before it was in him: his grandfather, Jonas Cijūnėlis, is one of the
names bound up with the beginnings of jazz in Lithuania.

He trained classically at the Čiurlionis School of Arts and studied jazz in The Hague and in
Rotterdam. For five years he played on ships that crossed the Atlantic. He plays, and he
sings. He has been honoured more than once by the President of Lithuania and by the Prime
Minister for representing his country abroad.

His arrangements are written down nowhere. They are made here, on stage, on the night —
which is why the same song is never played the same way twice.

Please welcome — Vytautas Straižys.
