Gintaras Rinkevičius is one of the most outstanding conductors in Lithuania, a National Prize winner and a professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. He is the founder of the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, its artistic leader and chief conductor. 1996 to 2003 Rinkevičius was the artistic leader and chief conductor of the Latvian National Opera, and between 2007 and 2009 he was the chief guest conductor. Rinkevičius was the chief conductor and artistic leader of the Novosibirsk Academic Symphony Orchestra. A winner at three international competitions, he is invited to conduct outstanding orchestras and has had performances with world famous performers at the most prestigious concert halls. Since 2017 Rinkevicius is chief conductor and art director of Liepaja Symphony Orchestra.
The list of the world’s best orchestras which Rinkevičius has conducted is impressive: the Berlin Symphoniker, the Staatskapelle Weimar, Frankfurt (Oder), Tampere, Tivoli in Copenhagen, the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the Russian National and the Russian State orchestras, the Odense Symphony and other orchestras. He has conducted at the most prestigious concert halls: the Kolner Philharmonic, the Salzburg Festspielhaus, London’s Royal Albert Hall, the Tampere Hall, the Champs Elysées in Paris, thePaleo della Musica in Barcelona, the Zaragoza Hall of Concerts, the Moscow Philharmonic, the Grand Hall of the Moscow State P. Tchaikovsky Conservatoire and elsewhere. Rinkevicius has given concerts all over Europe, in Taiwan and Hong Kong. He has conducted at many international festivals, among them the Nyon Festival in Switzerland, the Costa do Estoril Festival in Portugal, the Warsaw Autumn in Poland, theEuropamusicale in Munich, and the Chichester Festival in Great Britain.
Operas and ballets occupy a special place in Rinkevičius’ activities. Since his first opera produced at the National Theatre of Hungary in 1987 (Mozart’s The Seraglio) he has prepared and conducted over twenty operas and ballets in various countries. He has conducted the ballets such as Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker; Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and others. In 1993, together with the company of the Amsterdam Musical Theatre, he staged a ballet after Mozart’s Requiem. In 1998, he debuted at the Gothenburg Opera with Bizet’s Carmen. In 2003, Rinkevičius arranged a concert version of Peter Heiss’ Drot og marsk (The King and the Marshal) at the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen. Since 2003 Rinkevicius has been invited to conduct operas at the Moscow Bolshoy (Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, and Puccini’s La Boheme). From 2002 to 2005 Rinkevičius worked as the chief conductor at the Malmo Opera (Verdi’s Aida, Otello and Rigoletto, Puccini’s La Boheme, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and others). In 2006, Gintaras Rinkevičius supervised the premiere of the production of Bizet’s Carmen at Scottish Opera.
Since the establishment of the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra in 1988 Rinkevicius has been its artistic director and chief conductor. The conductor has prepared most of his large repertoire of symphonic music with the orchestra. He has conducted all symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Shostakovich, and has led many premieres.
Gintaras Rinkevičius left the M.K.Ciurlionis School of Arts, the St.Petersburg Conservatoire (1983) and the Moscow P.Tchaikovsky Conservatoire (1986). He is a winner of the Fifth Conductors’ Competition in Moscow (1983), a laureate of the international competition In memoriam Janos Ferencsik in Budapest (1986, a special prize for the interpretation of a part of Mozart’s The Magic Flute). Rinkevičius teaches at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.