Jauna Muzika (Young Musie) Chamber Choir came into being in 1989. In 1990-1996 Jauna Muzika has participated at 16 international chorał competitions and became a prizewinner of 14 of them. In Varna in 1993, it won the Grand Prix Europeo at the choral competition organized by the International Federation of Choral Musie (IFCM). In 1994, Jauna Muzika was awarded an official status of the Vilnius Municipal Choir Jauna Muzika and gained recognition at home winning the Grand Prix at the World Lithuanian Song Contest.
The founder and the first leader of the Vilnius Municipal Choir was the composer Remigijus Merkelys. The present conductor of the choir, the composer Vaclovas Augustinas, has been leading it since 1992. The choir is comprised of professional musicians, the graduates and students of the Lithuanian Academy of Music. The number of singers varies from 25 to 50 according to the requirements of the programme. Jauna Muzika is a very productive collective presenting an average of 60 concerts per year at home and abroad.
The mission of Jauna Muzika is to present valuable and extremely diverse repertoire of choral music a cappella. Requiring especial skills and mastery, this mission gave the choir a possibility to achieve a very high standard that was widely recognized in the world. Besides a cappella repertoire the choir has often performed full-scale vocal-instrumental compositions together with the world-famous orchestras, such as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, The Israel Camerata, Ludwigsburger Schloβfestspiele Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Bach Soloists Berlin, Mo-scow Virtuosi, St. Petersburg Camerata and Novosibirsk Camerata. In Lithuania the choir has appeared with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Vilnius Municipal St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra, and Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, with which. Jauna Muzika has been continually collaborating.
A very important area of the choir's activities is representation of the Lithuanian choral art in foreign countries. The concert tours have been taking Jauna Muzika throughout Europe, and they have visited also China, Japan and Israel several times. During the period of 14 years Jauna Muzika has accumulated valuable and very diverse repertoire, which includes compositions a capella by Bach, Vivaldi, Schütz, Brahms, Poulenc, Schönberga, Messiaen, Ligeti, Kxenakis, Berio, Pärta and others, as well as vocal-instrumental masterpieces such as Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, Messiah, Four Coronation Anthems, Psalm No. 109 Dixit Dominus, Bach's Mass in B minor, Magnificat, and cantatas, Verdi’ Requiem, Mozart’s Davide penitente, Requiem, Stravinsky’s OedipusRex, Orff s Carmina Burana, Noam Scheriff’ s Psalms of Jerusalem and Mehaye Hametim, Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au bucher, Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, and others. Jauna Muzika often performs compositions by Lithuanian composers Osvaldas Balakauskas, Feliksas Bajoras, Mindaugas Urbaitis, Vidmantas Bartulis, Nomeda Valančiute, Onute Narbutaite, Vaclovas Augustinas, Remigijus Merkelys, Giedrius Svilainis and many others. Being not only a performing collective, Jauna Muzika has initiated and carried out many significant musical projects.
