VILNIUS MAMA JAZZ 2025 | Concerts in the Small Hall of the LNDT

The 24th VILNIUS MAMA JAZZ Festival presents its audience with free daytime concerts, where the most talented artists not only delight the audience, but also have the opportunity to introduce themselves to the jazz industry professionals from abroad.

Since 2016, the Showcase Stage has hosted the country’s brightest jazz names and up-and-coming young talents, presenting the most progressive musical ideas. This year’s programme features ten original and exceptional bands, so jazz gourmets, alternative music fans and those looking for new sounds will find their favourites.

AGNĖ PASARAVIČIENĖ QUARTET

Lithuania, Czechia, Belgium

• Agnė Pasaravičienė – p
• Tadas Pasaravičius – saxes
• Jan Sedlak – db
• Yannick Ballmann – dr

Agnė Pasaravičienė, a pianist and composer, performs original works inspired by classical, jazz and pop music together with her quartet. Pasaravičienė’s compositions are playful musical spaces filled with expressive improvisations by the band members. The compositions illustrate the stories and impressions from everyday life taking the audience for a stroll down memory lane.

The quartet started performing in its current composition in 2020 and has appeared at Jazz Caravan 2021 (Lithuania), Aarhus Jazz Festival 2021 (Denmark), Supernova Jazz Blast 2021 (Denmark), VinterJazz 2022 (Denmark), Alytus Jazz 2023 (Lithuania), Birštonas Jazz Festival 2024 (Lithuania) and at Kaunas Philharmonic (Lithuania). The quartet’s debut album Towards the True Self is due to be released later this year.

“Agnė Pasaravičienė is a highly compelling pianist and composer who enjoys taking inspiration from a strong musical image, motif or illustration, building to a grand, full-bodied culmination, telling important and exciting stories,” noted Laima Slepkovaitė, a music journalist of the Lithuanian public broadcaster.

KEISTA BJAURI ŽUVIS (WEIRD UGLY FISH)

Lithuania

• Aistė Kalvelytė – dr
• Julius Čepukėnas – elec

Weird Ugly Fish is an experimental music duo that brings together drummer Aistė Kalvelytė and electronics artist Julius Čepukėnas, two different musicians similar in their creative passion. Their music is born with minimal means but maximum dedication to sound. Free jazz, krautrock, IDM, ambient and even punk rock meet in an unpredictable, improvisational sound that comes to life differently each time on stage. “It’s just a kind of jazzy exercise of avoiding squeezing yourself into frames,” as the musicians describe it.

Since their first public debut in 2021, the duo has quickly become one of the most interesting names in the Lithuanian alternative jazz. They have won the Novus Young Band Competition, released two albums (Legs are for Swimming and Cannot Disappear), toured in seven countries and appeared at major Lithuanian and international festivals, including the main stage of Vilnius Mama Jazz in 2024. Their music balances between a performance and a dance, a game and conceptuality appealing to both jazz purists and electronics enthusiasts.

Weird Ugly Fish always sound different when performing live – from subtle, almost ambient textures to pulsating rhythms. The musicians don’t seek to be comfortable or predictable, they rather explore, fuse, break and reinvent. The sound the duo creates is in a permanent flux, it’s a process and an invitation to dive into a stranger, but always sincere world of music.

JAN MAKSIMOVICZ / DMITRIJ GOLOVANOV – BEYOND

Lithuania

• Jan Maksimovicz – sax, live sampling
• Dmitrij Golovanov – p, live sampling

Jan Maksimowicz and Dmitrij Golovanov are a genre-bending duo with over 20 years of experience in the music scene. Their nearly intuitive connection brings a unique, deep and refreshing experience of live sound and sampling. The duo’s music is infused with wisdom, intelligence and sensitive interaction. Their 2019 debut album, Thousand Seconds Of Our Life, is a testament to an intimate, spiritual conversation between the soprano saxophone and the acoustic piano.

The duo’s second album, Beyond, released in 2020, was a further step away from the limitations of the genre into an experimental mix of improvisation, live sampling and digital sound processing. The album gained international attention and was included in the New York City Jazz Record’s list of Honorable Mentions of New Releases in 2020. “Beyond is yet another step beyond synergy by two of Lithuania’s most prominent improvisers,” noted Ken Waxmann from the JazzWord.

Both musicians are an inseparable part of the Lithuanian jazz scene. Dmitrij Golovanov has been for the past two decades one of the most active jazz musicians with a distinctive, expressive and meticulous performance style. A student of the legendary American pianist based in Germany, Richie Beirach, has collaborated with many Lithuanian and international musicians, and was awarded the Grand Prix of the Birštonas Jazz Festival in 2023.

Saxophonist Jan Maksimowicz is an exceptional figure in the Lithuanian jazz scene, a master of the soprano and alto saxophone with an original, conceptual vision. He creates a distinctive expressive and theatrical musical language at home with both jazz fans and listeners of contemporary academic music. Maksimowicz has collaborated in multiple projects, stage performances, including the Vein Trio, Tim Daisy and the National Symphony Orchestra.

According to John Sharpe from All About Jazz, “Their extemporized duet showcases a balance of introspection and drama, from staccato plosives to romantically inflected piano passages.”

LUVHURTS

Lithuania

• Mantvydas Pranulis – p, voc, perc
• Dominykas Snarskis – dr, perc
• Kornelijus Pukinskis – sax

Luvhurts is one of the most interesting and prominent young Lithuanian jazz bands founded in 2021 by Mantvydas Leonas Pranulis, a promoter of jazz, alternative music and social projects. In 2025, he has been nominated for the Golden Stage Cross award for his score for the stage play The Reunification of Two Koreas. This attests to the musician’s exceptional talent and ability to blend theatricality, expressiveness and unexpected improvisational solutions.

Luvhurts unites performers with different experiences and musical visions. Drummer Dominykas Snarskis is active in the jazz, improvisational and contemporary academic music scenes, plays with various ensembles and participates in interdisciplinary art projects. Saxophonist and composer, Kornelijus Pukinskis, earned his BA at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where his teacher was the renowned Scottish saxophonist, Tommy Smith. Pukinskis is actively preoccupied with experimental sound projects, exploring the principles of sonification and their application at the intersection of music and science.

Luvhurts’ music is a fusion of free improvisation, surprising sounds, and performative elements that travel freely across the genre. The trio experiments with rhythms, structure and contrasting lyrical interludes to create unique music that must be experienced live.