LT INSPIRED QUARTET
(Lithuania – Ukraine)
Vytautas Pilibavičius – tb
Rasa Serra – voc
Edgar Sabilo – p
Igor Zakus – bg
This group was formed by trombonist and composer Vytautas Pilibavičius especially for the Birštonas Jazz festival. In recent years, he has been creatively combining jazz improvisations, elements of Lithuanian folk and contemporary music in his projects. This quartet offers the programme of that kind, even though its members were brought together by different projects.
This time, the musical conversation initiated by Vytautas will be joined by Igor Zakus, one of Ukraine’s most prominent jazz masters, bass virtuoso, composer and bandleader, with whom Pilibavičius performed in Ukraine last autumn. The programme will feature compositions of both musicians.
Vytautas Pilibavičius is a composer, arranger as well as an initiator and participant of various jazz, contemporary and sacred music projects. He graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (LAMT) with a degree in trombone, brass band conducting and composition. In 1997, he completed an internship at the Cologne University of Music and Dance in Germany.
During his studies, he taught at the Jazz Department of the Balys Dvarionas Music School in Vilnius and played in Vladimir Chekasin’s ensembles. He soon began to express himself as a performer and composer of contemporary music. Vytautas was a member of the Ex tempore contemporary music ensemble, London Bridge Ensemble, Moscow Composers Orchestra, and has performed with Šarūnas Nakas’ contemporary music ensemble. He has also taught at the Vilnius and Šiauliai Conservatories and Šiauliai University.
In 2008–2011, he served as the director of the Šiauliai Wind Orchestra, and since 2011, he has been working in the Representative Wind Orchestra of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania. He is active as a composer and arranger of music for wind ensembles and orchestras, as well as an orchestrator. He also composes for symphony orchestras and strings as well as songs for pop- and contemporary music performers.
Osvaldas Balakauskas, Algirdas Martinaitis, Vytautas Laurušas, Šarūnas Nakas, Snieguolė Dikčiūtė, Remigijus Merkelys and other Lithuanian composers have written works for Pilibavičius. The trombonist has collaborated with Vladimir Tarasov and the Lithuanian Art Orchestra, Marco Badini, Daniil Kramer, Vladimir Miller, Sainkho Namtchylak, Markus Stockhausen, Itamar Borochov and other renowned performers.
Initiated by Vytautas, The Lithuanian Trombone Project in tandem with the ethnomusicologist and folk singer Loreta Sungailienė debuted in 2016 in Birštonas. It was a success not only in Lithuania but also abroad. In addition, Pilibavičius formed a trio with the kanklės player Aistė Bružaitė and Sungailienė, initiated folk jazz programmes with the then Trimitas Wind Instrument Orchestra and the Representative Wind Orchestra of the Ministry of the Interior.
Alytus-born Rasa Serra has a unique voice and is a versatile vocalist, performing jazz, popular music and Lithuanian folk songs. After graduating as an accordionist from Kaunas Juozas Gruodis Conservatoire in 1993, she continued her studies at the Department of Folk Music of the Faculty of Arts at Klaipėda University, where she got acquainted with folk traditions and soon became a soloist of the department’s folklore ensemble. Later, in order to improve her vocal abilities, she studied with Stepas Januška at the Jazz Department of Klaipėda University.
Since 2004, Rasa has been singing in the vocal group Cappella’A. It is the only quartet in Lithuania that performs various jazz, pop, soul and gospel pieces. Since 2005, she has been a member of the neofolk project Donis. In 2006, Rasa’s album of military-historical songs Bite lingo became an important event in the realm of contemporary national music.
The singer actively participates in events organised by the Lithuanian National Culture Centre, song festivals, folklore and jazz festivals, appears in programmes of the State Song and Dance Ensemble Lietuva, collaborates with multi-instrumentalist Saulius Petreikis and his group, as well as with jazz pianist Saulius Šiaučulis.
Serra’s folk music singing can be heard in the compositions of many Lithuanian and foreign contemporary electronic creators such as Enigma, Donis, Exem, Filtered Tools, Saint Of Sin and others. The singer promulgates folk songs by presenting them in a modern way, performing them with varied instrumental accompaniment, jazz performers, choirs, instrumental ensembles. Her discography includes 19 albums.
Rasa shares her experience with young people and teaches vocal at the Jeronimas Kačinskas Music School in Klaipėda.
Edgar Sabilo’s professional career began at the Balys Dvarionas Music School in Vilnius. Later, he studied with jazz pianist Artūras Anusauskas at the LAMTA, the Gnesin Academy of Music in Moscow, the Groningen Conservatory in the Netherlands, as well as at international internships.
The pianist is a prize winner of the international competitions Music without Borders in Druskininkai and Jazz World in Rostov-on-Don, has taken part in international projects and performed with his international quartet in Lithuania and abroad. He has collaborated with many well-known Lithuanian jazz musicians, including Darius Rudis, Arman Isojan, Eugenijus Kanevičius, Mindaugas Vadoklis, Vytis Nivinskas and Tomas Dičiūnas.
Igor Zakus is one of the best bass players in Ukraine. Born and raised in Chervonohrad near Lviv, he graduated as an oboist from the Lviv National Music Academy but became more fond of the bass guitar and started playing music of various genres.
In 2007, together with his associates, the bassist initiated the long-running Jazz Kolo project, which has brought together the country’s musical elite and has become an important creative platform for Ukrainian jazz. His concerts in Kiev and abroad have been broadcast on radio and television, recorded in audio and video formats – they have become a kind of national anthology of jazz, attracting a large audience of fans and intellectuals.
