Osvaldas Balakauskas (born December 19 1937 in Miliunai) is a Lithuanian composer of classical music. Career Balakauskas graduated from the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute in 1961 and attended Boris Lyatoshinsky's composition class at Kiev Conservatory in 1969. From 1992 to 1994 he was ambassador of Lithuania. In 1996 he was awarded with the Lithuanian National Award, the highest artistic and cultural distinction in Lithuania. He is currently head of the Composition Department of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. His output consists of symphonies, concertos, chamber and instrumental music. Music Balakauskas in his early conservatory years has been influenced by Stockhausen, Boulez, Xenakis and in particular, Webern and Messiaen. However, in the 1960's, he developed his own harmonic system, which carries a strong sense of tonality, termed the 'Balakauskas tonality'. This is radically different from the atonality

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