Kotryna Juodzevičiūtė was coached by teacher Donatas Montvydas in the fourth season of “The Voice of Lithuania” a decade ago.
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And this year, the teacher’s chairs will be occupied by Monika Liu, Aistè, Mantas Jankavičius, and the group “Žemaitukai” (Linas Vaitkevičius and Ovidijus Petrauskas).
It was precisely the news about “Žemaitukai” becoming teachers that prompted Kotryna Juodzevičiūtė to speak out. She expressed her opinion on Facebook.
“When I travel abroad and people find out that I am the winner of ‘The Voice of Lithuania,’ they always react enthusiastically. Of course, because they imagine the ‘The Voice’ concept popularized in the USA and UK. In these countries, the judges are world-famous stars, and the participants sing at such a level that it is often difficult to objectively choose the better one. It is a format that brought a completely new quality standard to television music projects.
The arrival of ‘The Voice’ in Lithuania was an event. At least for me. It seemed that we would finally have a touch of the global music industry, a small bridge to what is happening beyond our country’s borders. Of course, creating a project of such a level would require completely different resources, but we got a quality format where participants sing with a live band.
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More than a decade has passed since the first “The Voice of Lithuania,” but looking at this year’s jury, it seems we haven’t made much progress. It still seems that the main priority is the widest possible television audience, not a jury that would reflect the broadest spectrum of musical experience and competencies.
Yes, Žemaitukai are professionals in their field. They have a clear audience, are charismatic, look neat on stage, and consistently work in their genre. However, their work represents a rather narrow musical field, which naturally raises the question of whether such experience provides a sufficiently broad musical context to evaluate performers who appear in completely different genres and whose vocal and artistic challenges often require quite different competencies.
After the Jacob Collier and Take 6 concert at the Palace of the Grand Dukes the day before yesterday, once again, to my eyes and ears, a huge difference opened up between the standards of the global music industry and what we usually see and hear on Lithuanian television and radio. And this is certainly not because Lithuania lacks talented or professional musicians. The problem lies elsewhere – we still too rarely invite people to the most important musical platforms and the biggest television projects who, through their experience, creativity, or authority, could bring us closer to international standards.
Perhaps that is why Lithuania still does not have world-class music stars whose names would be recognized beyond our country’s borders. And although we often talk about how we want to grow a new and strong generation of performers, what musical standard do we still show them?” – pondered K. Juodzevičiūtė.
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This Kotryna’s post was wittily responded to by the member of “Žemaitukai” L. Vaitkevičius himself.
“If anything – we will ask for help!” – he wrote.
