Ugnė Liepa Žuklytė
Violin, Royal College of Music
Lithuanian violinist Ugnė Liepa Žuklytė made her solo debut with orchestra at the age of eight and performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra at twelve. In recognition of her outstanding achievements, she was awarded the Medal of Queen Morta. Honorary conductor of the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Professor Juozas Domarkas, has praised her as ‘an exceptionally gifted and serious young artist with excellent natural technical and emotional qualities, and most importantly, a serious attitude towards the subject matter of the music she is performing, as well as the original idea of the composer, which is rarely representative of musicians of a young age.’
Ugnė received support from the Mstislav Rostropovich Foundation from 2012 to 2018 during her early musical development. Between 2017 and 2019, she studied at the Junior Department of the Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen, Germany. She graduated from high school in Lithuania in 2020, studying violin with Professor Rūta Lipinaitytė. In 2024, Ugnė completed her undergraduate degree in Professor Radu Blidar’s class at the Royal College of Music in London, supported by an ABRSM scholarship. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree under Professor Lyutsia Ibragimova at the same institution as an ABRSM Scholar.
In the summer of 2024, Ugnė was awarded a full scholarship to participate in the six-week fellowship program at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine, USA, focusing on chamber music and solo performance. She has participated in competitions, masterclasses and music festivals across Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, the UK, and the USA, studying with renowned violinists such as Maxim Vengerov, Zakhar Bron, Boris Garlitsky, Lynn Chang, Pavel Berman, Miriam Fried, Marianne Piketty, Eszter Haffner, Sergey Krylov, Francesca Dego, and Alina Ibragimova. She was recently awarded second prize at the Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition and received a special prize for the best performance of a work by J.S. Bach at the Vaclav Huml International Violin Competition.
During her bachelor studies in London, Ugnė received the Henry Wood Accommodation Trust Award and the Harrison-Frank Family Foundation Award. Currently, as a master’s student, she has been named the London Symphony Orchestra Conservatoire Scholar for the academic years 2024/26 and will receive the Drake Calleja Trust Scholarship for 2025/26.
