Rytis Mažulis (b. 1961) studied composition under Prof. Julius Juzeliūnas at the Lithuanian Music Conservatory (now the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre), graduating in 1983. He began teaching at the same institution in 1989 and headed its Composition Department from 2006 to 2014. He was a fellowship holder at the artist‘s residency house Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart from September 1998 to April 1999.
In 1988 he was awarded the Tyla ('Silence') Prize for his chamber music composition Miegas ('Sleep'), and the Lithuanian Culture Fund Prize for his chamber and vocal music. Mažulis is a three-time winner for best vocal composition (ajapajapam, 2002; Forma yra tuštuma 'Form is Emptiness', 2006; Coda, 2011) in the best compositions of the year competition organised by the Lithuanian Composers' Union. In 2004 he was the recipient of the Lithuanian National Prize, awarded for achievements in culture and the arts.
Rytis Mažulis' works are regularly performed at various festivals, amongst those have been: Nyyd (Tallinn, 1991), Musikhøst (Odense, 1992), Deutschlandfunk (Cologne, 1992), Prague Spring (1995), the Norrtälje Chamber Music Festival (1995), De Suite Muziekweek (Amsterdam, 1995), Minimalisms (Berlin, 1998), Klang Raum (Stuttgart, 1998), 53. Arbeitstagung des Instituts für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung (Darmstadt, 1999), MaerzMusik (Berlin, 2003), Melos-Ethos (Bratislava, 2005), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2006, 2007), Festival 40/20 (Linz, 2008), Images Sonores (Liège, 2007), ISCM World Music Days (Vilnius, 2008), Warsaw Autumn (2010), Tectonics (Glasgow, 2018), Sacrum et Profanum (Krakow, 2022), The Wall of Sounds (Palermo, 2023), Exnovo musica (Venice/Mestre, 2024), Gaida (Vilnius, 2024), ISCM World New Music Days (Lisbon, 2025). His compositions have also been played at concerts in Warsaw, Gdańsk, Kahrlsruhe (ZKM), Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, New York, London, Tokyo, Riga, Rezekne, and elsewhere.
Rytis Mažulis' radical and experimental music can be described in oxymorons like 'minimalist maximalism', 'complicated simplicity' or 'dynamic stasis'. The composer is sometimes able to implement his ideas with the limits of a single halftone, holding a small microscopic part of a sound by means of an expanse of infinite density. Rytis Mažulis' works are like hypnotic sound rituals, in which it is easy to lose one's sense of time and space. The Belgian recording company Megadisc Classics became interested in this particular aspect of Rytis Mažulis's work and released four CDs of just his compositions between 2004 and 2010 (the portrait albums Cum essem parvulus, Twittering Machine, Form is Emptiness, Musica Falsa). Rytis Mažulis' music was performed by world well known musicians and ensembles in Lithuania and abroad: Arne Deforce, Anton Lukoszevieze, Manuel Zurria, Robert Fleitz, Tuomas Pyrhonen, Ewa Liebchen, Nobutaka Yoshizawa, Erik Carlson, Susanna Phillips, Helena Bugallo, Amy Williams, The Hilliard Ensemble, Court-Circuit, Pierrot Lunaire, Apartment House, The New York Miniaturists Ensemble, New Vocal Music Collective Melos, etc.
Based on the website of Music Information Centre, LT