Stasis Šimkus

Stasis Šimkus (Motiskai, near Kaunas, 1887 – Kaunas, 1942) was a Lithuanian composer, conductor and teacher.

He studied organ at the Warsaw Institute of Music until 1908 and that same year entered the St Petersburg Conservatory, where he worked with Liadov, Steinberg and Vītols between 1908 and 1914. Between 1915 and 1920 he lived in the United States, working as a conductor. After further study in Leipzig (1921–1922), he returned to Lithuania, where he continued conducting, taught and collected folk songs.

Among his pupils, Jonas Švedas stood out. His output includes the opera The Village at the Plantation (1916), the symphonic poem Neman (1930), cantatas, songs, works for piano and arrangements of folk songs.