Professor Donatas Katkus (born 1942) is a graduate of the Vilnius and Moscow Concervatoires. He is conductor, violist, teacher and musicologist. In 1965 he founded the Vilnius String Quartet and for 29 years he was a member of it. The quartet won the first prize at the International Liege Competition in Belgium and toured around the world. Professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music. In 1994 Katkus founded the Christopher Chamber Orchestra of Vilnius. In 2003 he was awarded the Lithuanian National Prize of the World Intellectual Property Organisation.