Vykintas Baltakas, born 1972 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Studied at the music academies of Vilnius (composition with Vytautas Barkauskas, conducting with Jonas Aleksa and Lionginas Abarius) and Karlsruhe (composition with Wolfgang Rihm, conducting with Andreas Weiss); also studied at the International Eötvös Institute (1994–97) and the Conservatoire de Paris (1998). Honors include a scholarship from the Darmstädter Ferienkurse (1997), the Claudio Abbado Composition Prize (2003) and the Siemens Förderpreis (2007). Founder of the Lithuanian Ensemble Network, 2009.