Kęstutis Lipeika

Lecturer at the LMTA Department of Folk Instruments. Subjects: Birbynė. Languages: English (C1), Russian (C1).

Kęstutis Lipeika (b. 1979) is a birbynė (an authentic Lithuanian wind instrument) music performer. In 2003, Kęstutis Lipeika graduated from the LMTA where he studied in Professor Antanas Smolskus’ birbynė class, Professor Valentas Leimontas’ and Professor Jonas Aleksa’s conducting classes. In 2004, Kęstutis Lipeika joined the staff of the LMTA Department of Folk Instruments as a lecturer.

Kęstutis Lipeika prepares solo performance programs and performs with ensembles. He is an enthusiastic participant of national and international festivals and projects and holds awards from several national competitions.  Both as a soloist and a member of several ensembles, the musician has performed all around Lithuania and abroad: the major destinations on his touring list include Belarus, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, China, Latvia, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Hungary, and Germany.

Kęstutis Lipeika’s creative interests go beyond performing music. He is also a member of creative groups, an arranger, a composer, and a conductor. Since 2003, Kęstutis has been a conductor at the Lithuania’s Song Celebration and the Baltic Student Festival Gaudeamus. He is a director of the orchestra of the Vilnius Tech (Vilnius Gediminas Technical University) folk dance ensemble Vingis.

In addition to creative activity, Kęstutis Lipeika dedicates a lot of time to teaching and research: he takes part in conferences and seminars as a speaker and leads master classes. Kęstutis can be frequently seen as a member of organising committees and jury boards at national competitions. Apart from teaching at the LMTA, the musician is also on the staff of Vilnius Karoliniškės Music School as an expert teacher. At this school, Kęstutis is also a director and conductor of the school symphony orchestra. Kęstutis consistently shares his extensive experience as an expert consultant of folk instrument orchestras and ensembles of the Lithuanian National Culture Centre.