Ignas Maknickas

Ignas Maknickas graduated from the National M.K. Čiurlionis School of Art in Vilnius in 2017, then studied with Joanna MacGregor, Dame Myra Hess Chair of Piano, at the Royal Academy of Music for his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. He gained his Advanced Diploma in 2024. He has received the Queen’s Award for Excellence and is a Leverhulme Arts Scholar, a recipient of the Imogen Cooper Music Trust Scholarship, and an Artist of the Munster Trust Recital Scheme.

Ignas became the winner of the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) in 2023. As a soloist he has appeared at the Steinway Hall London, Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Charlottenborg Festival Hall in Copenhagen, Ed Landreth Hall in Fort Worth and the Lithuanian National Philharmonic in Vilnius. As a concerto soloist, Ignas has appeared with the Aarhus Symphony, Alicante Philharmonic, Dartington Festival Orchestra, Lithuanian National Symphony, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players and the Royal Academy of Music Chamber Orchestra.

Ignas has been invited for masterclasses with Dmitri Bashkirov, Stephen Hough, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Menahem Pressler, Tamás Ungár and Arie Vardi; he won First Prize at the XIX Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition for Youth in Szafarnia, First Prize at the Piano Competition ‘Young Virtuoso’ in Zagreb, Third Prize at the Aarhus Piano Competition and, in 2021, was the semi-finalist of the Vendome Prize.

Image: Kaupo Kikkas