Clarinetist Šarūnas Jankauskas enjoys a rewarding performance and teaching career. Most of his professional activities take place at James Madison University in Virginia, where he guides an enthusiastic group of aspiring young musicians, teachers and entrepreneurs. Jankauskas joined the faculty in 2016 and is dedicated to exploring new ways of addressing playing techniques, expanding teaching literature and maintaining a highly positive learning environment.

His performance engagements have taken him through Europe, Canada and various regions of the United States. Jankauskas appeared as a concerto soloist with Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Round Rock Symphony, numerous university-level ensembles and collaborated with accomplished artists, including St. Petersburg and Jasper String Quartets, pianists Domenico Codispoti and Johan Botes. He participated at International Conservatory Week Festival (St. Petersburg, Russia), Musicalis Daunia (Italy), SoundSpace at Blanton, Chamber Music at the Barn, KNOB Festival of New Music, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, International Clarinet Association’s ClarinetFests®, College Music Society’s National Conference and various composer/new music symposiums. He also has been a fellow in prestigious summer programs: Sarasota Music Festival, New Music Workshop of Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Round Top Festival-Institute and Texas Music Festival. His recent commissioning project focused on works for clarinet in various duo-partnership roles. After numerous premieres, it culminated in a digital and CD album Duos, released by Soundset Recordings in 2020. As a developing composer, Jankauskas has premiered a couple of his own works.

Dr. Jankauskas previously taught at Texas Lutheran and Wichita State Universities, in addition to serving as principal clarinetist of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. He studied at the Academy of Music and Theatre in his native Lithuania, and, after moving to the U.S., received degrees from Grand Valley State University, Rice University and The University of Texas at Austin. Please visit www.sarunasjankauskas.com for more info.

JOHAN BOTES is known for his extraordinary versatility as a soloist, collaborative musician, and teacher; a career which has brought him recognition in concerts around the world. A native of South Africa, Botes showed musical promise from an early age. Among many notable awards in his native country, he was the 2007 First Prize Winner of the Third UNISA/Vodacom National Piano Competition playing Rachmaninoff’s technically demanding Third Piano Concerto to a standing ovation; a performance for which he also won the Desmond Willson Memorial Prize for best concerto in the final round. In 2008, Botes moved to Europe and continued his studies in London with British pianist Martin Roscoe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

As a soloist, Botes has performed in venues worldwide. He has appeared as soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa, the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban, Juneau Symphony (AK), Bainbridge Symphony (WA), Auburn Symphony (WA) as well as the Texas Chamber Orchestra. He also performed in Prague with the Hadrec Kralove Orchestra and toured to Bulgaria in 2005 where he played with the Varna Philharmonic Orchestra. An equally accomplished organist, he passed the Performers Licentiate in Organ of UNISA in 2006 with distinction and was invited for the overseas bursary competition, where he was awarded the Stephanus Zondagh Overseas Music Scholarship.

Dr. Botes holds a D.M.A in Piano Performance from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a winner of the Sidney M. Wright Presidential Scholarship Competition in Piano Accompaniment. He received a M.M from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He received another M.M. as well as his B.M. from the University of Pretoria in South Africa. He is currently Associate Professor of Piano at Marshall University in Huntington, WV. Before Marshall, Botes was lecturing in Piano, Group and Collaborative Piano at The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.