Conductor
Modestas Pitrenas is a versatile figure who has been active in orchestral music, choral music, and opera. He is the chief conductor and music director of the
Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra.
Pitrenas was born on September 15, 1974, in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. He began studying conducting as a teen, earning a degree in the field with distinction at the Juozas Tallat Kelpša Music School.
Pitrenas went on to the Lithuanian Musical Academy (LMA), studying with Lionginas Abarius, and he went west for two years of study at the Salzburg Mozarteum with
Walter Hagen-Groll and Karl Kamper. He earned a bachelor's degree in choral and opera conducting there in 1996 and then returned to Lithuania, earning a master's degree at the LMA after further studies with Abarius. He also took further lessons in symphonic and operatic conducting with
Juozas Domarkas.
Pitrenas taught at the Vilnius Seminary and directed its choir from 2000 to 2004. He became the chief conductor of the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra in 2006, remaining in that post until 2011, and from 2009 to 2014, he was the chief conductor of the Latvian National Opera in Riga.
Pitrenas was named the chief conductor and artistic director of the
Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra in 2015 and continues to hold that position. He has also served since 2018 as the chief conductor of the
Symphony Orchestra and Theater of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Pitrenas has made a wide variety of guest conducting appearances that have taken him to the U.S., Israel, and China, among other countries. As an opera conductor, he has lead productions of
Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Cologne Opera,
Puccini's Il Trittico at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and
Stravinsky's Le Rossignol at the Warsaw National Opera.
Pitrenas came on the recording scene with a series of five choral and orchestral albums released in 2020 and 2021 on the Accentus, Ondine, Prima Classic, and Channel Classics labels. Among these was a recording of
Arvo Pärt's unusual piano concerto
Lamentate in 2020. In 2021,
Pitrenas and the
Lithuanian National Symphony backed accordion sensation
Martynas Levickis in a recording of
Astor Piazzolla's Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas.