theartsdesk Q&A: young pianist Ignas Maknickas on appearing at the Roman River Festival and beyond

The high level of entries for this year’s Leeds Piano Competition – 366, almost twice the number who entered in 2018 – is just one reminder that any young pianist wanting to make their name today is negotiating shark-infested waters. Technical excellence is a given – if you want to make a living, you need to have something extra to win the support of concert halls and critics.

When I first see the 25-year-old Lithuanian Ignas Maknickas (the ‘c’ is pronounced ‘ts’) in St James Park, he doesn’t look as if he’s suffering too badly from the pressure – he’s tapping idly on his phone while surveying the passing tourists and waterfowl with amused curiosity. He’s unfussed too that the only available outdoor table at our café is next to a gluttonous mob of pigeons gorging on leftovers. “Someone’s having a feast” he remarks raising an eyebrow, before settling down to talk about his two obsessions – classical music and cars.

Of the petrolhead side of his persona, more later. Of the pianist, let’s start – well, not at the very beginning – but at the point when Maknickas was nine years old, and performing his first concerto with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra. “The concerto was quite easy technically, but it was fun,” he says drily. “The Lithuanian composer Julius Andrejevas wrote it for children.” Maknickas had been invited to perform the piece in the Vilnius Congress Concert Hall, which seats one thousand people. Was he terrified? Exhilarated? He shrugs. “I wasn’t stressed, I just enjoyed the sense of being a small human being on a stage with all these grown-up musicians.”

We have met because on 25 September, Maknickas will be playing at the Roman River Festival, which is based in Colchester and brings world-class musicians to perform in  churches and historic buildings dotted along the Essex coast. Cellist Orlando Jopling has been at the tiller of the festival for more than fifteen years, demonstrating an eye both for unusual venues and emerging stars that has turned it into a gem for cultural connoisseurs. Other performers this year will include Classic FM Rising Star of 2023, violinist Hana Chang, and the celebrated avant-garde group The Hermes Experiment.

It’s not hard to see why Maknickas has been invited to join them – despite his playing down the challenges of his first major performance, people were impressed enough for him to be invited to play at the Paris Cercle de L’Union aged 11 and the Louvre Auditorium aged 15. When he was 18 he moved to London to study piano at the Royal Academy of Music with Joanna MacGregor, going on to win the Queen’s Award for Excellence when he became the highest scoring graduate of his year.

Physically as well as professionally Maknickas has the kind of attributes that might confer a certain loftiness. He’s tall and skinny with precipitous cheekbones, a steel-firm jawline and a shock of dark curly hair that wouldn’t look out of place on the hero of a Gothic novel. Perhaps the lack of preciousness is connected to the fact that he’s the eldest of a family of six children, most of whom are highly gifted at classical music. He talks proudly of each one of his siblings, including Greta, 22, a violinist now studying at the Royal Academy and Julius, 21, a cellist at the Academy too, who both perform with him in The Maknickas Family Trio. Julius is also in the orchestra of the Czech Philharmonic, and will be performing with them in the Carnegie Hall this December.

Did his parents intend to produce a clutch of musical high-achievers – a kind of Baltic version of the Kanneh-Masons? “My parents are not musicians themselves, they just love classical music,” he replies. “They met when they were both students in California [where Ignas himself was born]. When they were listening to music on long road trips my dad had the dream that they would have five children and at least a couple of them would be able to perform.” As their first child, he was not initially a willing guineapig, “They put me in the choir of a local Lithuanian church when I was five and I hated it,” he says. Undeterred, when he was six they sent him to the National M K Čiurlionis School of Art, where he quickly discovered a love of the piano.  

Today it’s clear he believes the school was the making of him. Named after the Lithuanian painter and composer Mikalojus Čiurlionis, it provides free education for children between the ages of six and 18 who want to specialise in music, fine arts, or ballet. “They also provide a high level of academic studies,” he declares. “So while many people who leave there get accepted at musical institutions like the Royal College of Music or the Juilliard, those who decide not to specialise in the arts will go to places like Oxford to study medicine.”

The contrast between the Lithuanian approach to nurturing the arts in young people and the British approach couldn’t be starker. Maknickas underlines that discipline was key, “In the last two to three years of school we would attend from 8am till 8pm and there was homework after that, so it was pretty intense. But it was a fantastic experience. If I ever have children and go back to Lithuania, I would like to send them there. When I decided at the age of around 14 that I was going to focus on music the teachers were very supportive – they prepared me for university and for life.”

Most aspects of life, anyway. He’s frank that it was a shock to the system when he first arrived in London. “It was tough being away from my family and living in a dormitory with people from other countries,” he says soberly. “It really made me grow up”.

He refuses to dwell, however, on the downsides. One person who supported him strongly through this period was his teacher Joanna MacGregor, Head of Piano at the Royal Academy, “She’s really been a role model for me,” he says. “Even before I came to the Academy I had listened to her recording of The Art of Fugue on YouTube and loved it. As my teacher she encouraged me to be curious about lesser-known composers – she herself after all has recorded everything from Bach to contemporary music. Now I’m a Fellow at the Academy, but she’ll always be a mentor for me.”

For his recital at the Roman River Festival, Maknickas will be playing a combination of Romantic works (including Schumann’s Kinderszenen and Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie) and contemporary works. He talks rhapsodically about the first time he heard the Australian composer Carl Vine, whose Bagatelles he’ll be playing, “I was watching the Cliburn piano competition and one of the performers played him and my God, it was so good. So atmospheric, so dark, so mysterious.”

Though he doesn’t describe himself as political, as a Lithuanian he’s strongly tuned into the plight of Ukraine, “I will always support them. They will always be an independent country, whatever happens.” It was at a concert to support Ukraine that he discovered another composer who will feature in his programme, Sergei Bortkiewicz, who lived in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, but was strongly influenced by the Romantic style. “Some people say he didn’t have an original voice, but if you really think about his compositions and take them seriously you can see he has his own musical style and language.”

It’s the beginning of a busy year for Maknickas – his concerts will include performing at the Wigmore on December 3 and in the spring he will make his debut at the Berlin Konzerthaus. He also has his first CD coming out under the Deux-elles label at the start of 2025. I ask him how he relaxes, and it’s here that the conversation changes gears in every sense. “I love cars,” he replies, his eyes widening. “Ever since I was three years old I’ve been drawing cars – I wanted to be a car designer, and even created my own car name, McIgnis, because ‘ignis’ means fire.”

Warming to his theme, he continues, “I’ve started organising these car meets in Lithuania. Sometimes more than 50 cars come. It’s a really strong passion, though,” he collects himself, “music always comes first”.

For the moment, it seems that car design’s loss is the piano world’s gain. He has been with the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) for a year and is clearly pleasantly surprised by the “many opportunities” that are coming his way.  What’s certain is that over the next year a lot more people are going to get the chance to form an opinion on this very distinctive musician. He nods. “Now my job is to be responsible and to do my best.”

• The Roman River Festival runs from 24 to 29 September. Maknickas will be performing his recital on Wednesday 25 September 
• Details of other Ignas Maknickas concerts
• More classical music features on theartsdesk