Playing It Forward

Growing up in Lithuania, Egle Jarkova (BM '12, GPD '14, violin) spent her days with a singular focus: mastering the violin. “Nothing else, just practice, practice, practice,” she says. 

From the age of 11, Jarkova attended an arts-centered, state-run boarding school—the prestigious National M. K. Ciurlionis Art School in Vilnius—with access to the best music education in the country, tuition-free. Never one to take a privilege for granted, Jarkova committed herself fully—and to call the training “rigorous” would understate its intensity. 

“My teacher was one of the best teachers in Lithuania. The approach [was] old methods, all Soviet Union, Russian methods. You practice 25 hours per day,” Jarkova says. “It was very unhealthy, very competitive.”

Positive reinforcement was hard to come by. The feedback she received about her playing focused almost exclusively on her mistakes, she says; and the solution to every problem, according to her teacher, was to practice harder. Of course, 25 hours per day was absurd, but eight was considered reasonable. 

Still, Jarkova found that no matter how many hours she logged, her performances rarely showed her true abilities. “I had this problem that when I would go on stage when I was 16 or 17, I had a really hard time showing what I was doing in my practice room because I was so scared,” she says. “Discipline is a positive word, in my opinion. [This] was something worse than discipline. It was constantly telling you that you’re not good enough.” 

Jarkova learned a formidable amount of violin technique at Ciurlionis Art School. When she arrived at Boston Conservatory for her undergraduate violin studies, she felt exceptionally well-prepared and grateful for her strong foundation. But she learned something else at the boarding school, and she still carries it with her today: Young musicians need positive reinforcement as much as they need instruction. Now 10 years into a career as a performing artist and violin teacher, she aims to balance discipline with joy, encouraging students to critique themselves with both honesty and self-compassion.

Jarkova takes this approach when teaching violin and chamber music at public and private schools throughout the Boston area, as well as at her own studio. But she also wanted to return to Lithuania, where she could work with students like her younger self and expand access to music education in her home country. 

“Where I come from, students aren’t necessarily financially able to see anything outside of their own practice room or their own teacher. But also, mentally there is a little block … or maybe the teachers don’t necessarily allow us to see other things,” Jarkova says. “I wanted to offer a door—or at least a window—for these students to see the opportunities outside their comfort zone.” 

To this end, she founded the international summer music festival Vivace Vilnius in 2012, with support from Bruce and Davi-Ellen Chabner and Ricardo and Marla Lewitus. The festival brings accomplished teachers to the nation’s capital for private lessons, master classes, and public performances. All master classes and concerts are open to the public, free of charge; and Jarkova secures scholarships for students who need financial support to attend. Festival participants also visit Santaros Children Hospital, giving performances for patients and their caregivers.

Jarkova has organized, taught, and performed at the festival every summer for 12 years, bringing along faculty members from Boston Conservatory. Since the festival’s inception, these Conservatory faculty have included pianists Jonathan Bass and Michael Lewin, and violinists Lynn Chang and Markus Placci, all of whom have taught master classes and performed chamber works in venues throughout Vilnius. 

Jarkova herself received scholarships to attend master classes in Lithuania and, later, as a chamber music student in Italy at Scuola Superiore Internazionale di Musica da Camera. In each case, she saw a glimpse of another mindset—an alternative perspective on violin playing—that expanded her own abilities. One master class in particular drastically changed the course of her studies: She happened to perform for Chang and Lewin, who were impressed with her playing and encouraged her to come to Boston Conservatory. In short order, Jarkova applied and transferred. With support from the Davis United World College Scholars, she finished her Bachelor of Music degree in 2012. She then stayed to complete her Graduate Performance Diploma at the Conservatory in 2014.

Through Vivace Vilnius, Jarkova offers students from all over Europe the opportunity to gain a new perspective, despite the limits of location, social conditions, or income. Latvian violinist Svens Skriveris (BM '18, GPD '20, MM '23) traveled to Lithuania to attend the festival in the summer after his first undergraduate year at the Academy of Music in Riga. Working with Placci changed his approach to the violin, Skriveris says. And, like Jarkova, it altered the path of his music studies, leading him to Boston Conservatory.

“It was so fundamentally freeing for me to encounter a teacher and musician with such an open mind, who wasn’t necessarily bound to a specific school of violin performance or tradition, but rather just performing freely and efficiently.” 

Skriveris acknowledges that transferring to school in the U.S.—effectively starting over with his college studies in a new country—was almost too much to contemplate. His ability to follow through required a substantial amount of financial aid, which was made available via the Michael A. Alaura Memorial Scholarship (created by Anthony and Michele Manganaro in honor of Michele’s father, a 1968 graduate of Boston Conservatory who went on to perform with the Boston Symphony Orchestra).

With Vivace Vilnius, Jarkova has worked hard to create opportunities for young musicians like Skriveris, providing the right time, in the right place, with the right people. “I believe education is a human right, but sometimes a certain type of education—or better to say, access to a certain education—becomes a privilege. It always felt to me like I have to give it back.”