Meet the Musicians: Kipras Mazeika

Kipras Mazeika might be the only Seattle Symphony musician who agreed to learn his instrument before he’d ever even seen it.  

He started on trombone in sixth grade but there were four trombone players in his middle school band. Halfway through the year, the music director asked if anyone wanted to try bassoon to fill out the orchestra’s wind section. “I volunteered not even knowing what it was. But I was up for a new challenge.” 

Kipras says part of the reason he became hooked was his bassoon teacher, Francine Peterson. “She really inspired me to dedicate myself to improving. And she encouraged me to join the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra very early on, and that was also a big factor in convincing me that I wanted to stick with it for the long haul.” He experienced the joy of playing and really felt things coming together with this exposure to other serious orchestra students, playing music with them and working together and getting those very specific shivers prompted by beautifully performed music. He won a Seattle Symphony Young Artist audition in 2017, which found him performing the first movement of the Hummel Bassoon Concerto with the orchestra in a 2018 Community Concert, also an impactful moment.  

He started playing contrabassoon in high school, drawn to its deep, rumbling sound and untroubled by its unwieldiness and difficulty. But he really honed and improved upon his playing after landing at Rice University’s Sheperd School of Music in Houston, where he studied under his other influential mentor, Benjamin Kamins, and put more time into practicing it.  

Like Peterson, Kamins imparted the fundamentals, skills and technique Kipras needed to become a great bassoonist, but he was even more inspirational in his devotion to sharing and spreading his knowledge and passion for music. Kamins was also an incredible player. “Seeing his connection to bringing his own emotions into the music but in a way that is practicable and teachable, and kind of coaching us through that, was really helpful showing us how to make our own decisions in music and becoming our own teachers eventually.” Or, in the case of Kipras, spreading his own wisdom and love of bassoon to younger generations. Not only does Kipras give private bassoon lessons, but he has also appeared in every Tiny Tots woodwinds quintet since starting at the Symphony as Bassoon and Contrabassoon in the 2022/2023 season. 

He really enjoyed his work at Rice in the Just for You Music Program, “playing for kids and answering questions and seeing how excited they were to learn more. So, I really wanted to continue that when I got here.” He played a lot of sports when he was in high school and his love of teaching has extended to coaching track and field part-time at his old school, UPrep, specifically javelin, which he used to throw. “I get the same enjoyment from coaching as teaching music. It’s instilling practice and beliefs, it’s inspiring and it’s applicable to everything. You make a big impact on students at that age.” 

Outside of the Symphony and teaching, he spends his time in search of the city’s best dumplings with his girlfriend, Rachel — Dumpling the Noodle has taken the lead — and going on nature hikes at Discovery Park and Deception Pass with his family. He’s also picked up accordion. He says he’s always loved it, especially growing up and dancing polka in Seattle’s Lithuanian community. He traveled to Lithuania a few years ago with Lietutis Lithuanian Folk Dance Ensemble to take part in the International Song and Dance Festival that happens there every four years, and says much of the traditional Baltic dance music is accordion based. He’s enjoying figuring out how to play it but admits “it’s like a whole different language to learn, to become proficient at it.” 

See Kipras play in two bassoon trios during the final Chamber Series concert of the season on May 12, 2026. To read the program notes, click here.