Portrait

Jonas Vozbutas is a young accordionist and laureate of international music competitions in the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Belarus, Switzerland, Italy, Slovakia, Austria, Latvia, Estonia, Portugal, Germany, France, Croatia, the USA, and Canada. In his active decade, Jonas has given numerous solo recitals at various music festivals in Lithuania, Estonia, France, and Ukraine, and he has performed in many major concert halls in Lithuania and other European countries. When he was only 10 years old, he made his debut as a young artist at the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic!

Jonas actively performs not only classical music but also jazz. In 2024, he was a guest soloist at the annual "The Great Plains" jazz festival in Omaha, United States, where he performed with several professional big bands and shared the stage with world-famous jazz stars such as Jose Valentino, Bryan Davis, and Willie Murillo.

Thanks to the M. Rostropovich Charity and Support Foundation, which has supported him since 2015, the young artist was invited in 2018 to musically represent his country at the "European Culture Days" event in Frankfurt, celebrating the centenary of the restoration of the Lithuanian state. There, he held a concert with the youth vocal ensemble "Jazz Island" in the magnificent St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church. Furthermore, in 2022, in the great hall of the Lithuanian National Philharmonic, he and other grantees of the foundation premiered the contemporary work "Légende d'Egle" by French composer Pierre Thilloy, written for a mixed ensemble.

Jonas has shared the stage with many renowned Lithuanian and foreign artists, including violinist Gidon Kremer and pianist Muza Rubackyte, as well as prestigious ensembles such as Kremerata Baltica, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the Klaipeda and Siauliai Chamber Orchestras, the Vilnius State Quartet, the Ciurlionis Quartet, and the string quartet "Mettis."

In addition, while delving into the secrets of music, the young artist is successfully exploring composition. He draws inspiration from the great masters of 20th-century American minimalism, such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, as well as contemporary film score composer and ambient music creator Max Richter, along with jazz stylistics.

Finally, in 2024, due to his contributions to promoting his native land of Mažeikiai and the entire region of Samogitia, both in Lithuania and beyond, Jonas was appointed Artistic Director of the newly established Music Festival of the Church of St. John of Nepomuk in the town of Seda.

Jonas is a graduate of the Mažeikiai Vytautas Klova Music School (teacher Vaida Mikalauskienė) and Šiauliai Saulius Sondeckis Gymnasium of Arts (teacher Marytė Markevičienė). During those years of musical development, Jonas regularly took lessons from Professor Elsbeth Moser (Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media). Currently, he is attending the prestigious and historic Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where he is developing his performing skills in the accordion class of Professor Vincent Lhermet.