Lukas Geniušas

Pianist Lukas Geniušas has found critical and popular success in both Eastern Europe and the West since coming on the scene in the 2000s decade. He has a large repertory stretching from the Baroque to contemporary works. Geniušas was born in Moscow on July 1, 1990. He grew up in one of the most musical of families: his father was piano great Petras Geniušas; his mother, Xenia Knorre, taught at the Moscow State Conservatory; and his grandmother, Vera Gornostayeva, was a well-known pianist, with whom he studied at the Moscow Conservatory. Geniušas took up the piano at five and was performing in public a year later. Starting as a preteen, he won major international prizes, including first place at the St. Petersburg International Competition's youth "Step to Mastery" event in 2002, first place at the First Open Competition of the Central Music School in Moscow in 2003, and second place in the Young Artists category at the Gina Bachauer International Competition in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2005. A 2004 Mstislav Rostropovich Foundation fellowship broadened his recognition in Russia. Further competition prizes, including first place as an adult in the Bachauer event in 2010, placed Geniušas in some of the world's top concert halls by the early 2010s. As a soloist, he has appeared in Russia, Lithuania, and across Europe. His many concerto appearances include those with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, NHK Symphony Orchestra, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, as well as orchestras across Russia and the Baltic states. A second prize winner at the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw, he has often played and recorded music by that composer but also records other works from the western European and Russian mainstream, including those of Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky. Geniušas released a Chopin album derived from his Chopin competition performances in 2011 and then issued several more Chopin albums on the Dux label. He then recorded for Piano Classics and Melodiya. He moved to the Mirare label in 2020 for an album combining Chopin mazurkas with the composer's Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58. ~ James Manheim