Karolina Juodelyte, born in Lithuania in 1990, "is one of the leading concert organists who combines technical brilliance with a mature artistic interpretation" (Axel Engels in "Westfälische Nachrichten", 2019).
Her first encounter with music came at the age of six when she enrolled at the Čiurlionis Art School in Vilnius. Her first instrument was the piano, and at the age of twelve she began studying the organ with Vida Prekerytė. She initially studied at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, taking organ lessons with Gediminas Kviklys and Virginija Survilaitė alongside musicology; she also undertook studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Roman Summereder and at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Kari Jussila as part of various exchange programmes. At the Detmold University of Music, she completed her Master’s degree and concert examination under Martin Sander. She also obtained a Bachelor’s degree in church music there. In 2021, she completed her Master’s degree in church music at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Karolina Juodelyte has gained recognition through awards at international competitions. In 2011, she won the International M. K. Čiurlionis Competition in Vilnius and received six special prizes (for the best performance of Čiurlionis’ works, the best performance of his Fugue in B flat minor, the most creative interpretation of contemporary music, the most artistic performance, as the youngest finalist, and the chance for a performance with the Lithuanian National Philharmonic). In 2012, she was awarded 3rd prize at the Leoš Janáček International Competition in Brno (Czech Republic). In 2014, she won a prize at the performance competition organised by the Alumni Association and the Student Union of the Detmold University of Music. In the same year, she received a special prize for the best performance in the second round at the Petr Eben International Organ Competition Opava (Czech Republic). In 2015, she won second prize and a special prize for the best interpretation of a work by Sweelinck at the 9th International Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck Organ Music Competition in Gdańsk (Poland). In 2017, she took third place at the 1st International Organ Competition in Białystok (Poland) and was a semi-finalist at the 8th International Organ Competition Musashino-Tokyo (Japan). In 2019, she was a prize-winner at the 2nd Shanghai International Organ Competition (China) and in 2020 she took third place at the 8th International Franz Schmidt Organ Competition in Vienna (Austria).
Karolina Juodelyte has already performed in numerous concerts, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician, at national and international festivals in Germany, Finland, Lithuania, Austria, Poland, Russia, Italy, Croatia and the Czech Republic, and has attended masterclasses with renowned organists (Guy Bovet, Daniel Roth, Jaroslav Tuma, Hartmut Lucke, Theo Jellema, Domenico Tagliente, Sergey Cherepanov, Hans-Ola Ericsson, Almut Frey, Harald Vogel, Leo van Doesselar, and others). She performs with orchestras such as the Dresden Philharmonic, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the ORSOphilharmonic, the Bielefeld Philharmonic, the North West German Philharmonic, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, the Detmold Orchestra Society, the Magdeburg Philharmonic, the Berliner Cappella Chamber Orchestra, the Kammersymphonie Berlin and Concertino Berlin.
At the end of 2020, she recorded the album "The Road to Silence" featuring contemporary Lithuanian organ music (MAMA-studios). Her CD featuring a recording of the Concerto for Organ, Violin and Chamber Orchestra by the Lithuanian composer Julius Juzeliūnas, alongside the leading Lithuanian violinist Džeraldas Bidva, conductor Adrija Čepaitė and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra for Odradek Records (2018), was shortlisted for the 2019 Grammy Awards. She has recorded further CDs with the Lithuanian String Quartet (Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society, 2013) and the opera singer Nora Petročenko (MAMA-studios, 2016).
Since 2017, she has performed all the world premieres of organ works by Lithuanian composers at the International Musicological Conference in Lithuania. From 2018 to 2022, she taught at the Vilnius Academy of Music and Theatre.
In 2019, she featured in a music video by director Darius Abaris, which was screened with live music by the Lithuanian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robertas Šervenikas during an event at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre to mark Lithuanian Independence Day. In the same year, she performed at the Lithuanian Philharmonic Hall alongside the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Sergey Krylov. In 2012 and 2013, she received expressions of gratitude from Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaitė and from the Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament ("Seimas"), Irena Degutienė.
She was a scholarship holder of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Society of Friends and Patrons of the Detmold University of Music, and the Alfred Toepfer Foundation (Concerto Music Scholarship).
From 2015 to 2017, Karolina Juodelyte was organist and choir director at the Evangelical Reformed Church in Detmold-Heiligenkirchen, from 2020 to 2021 she was cantor at the Paulus Parish in Berlin-Tempelhof, and from 2022 to 2024 church musician at the Holy Family Parish in Berlin-Lichterfelde. Since July 2024, she has been church musician at the Bernhard Lichtenberg Parish in Berlin-Mitte.