Donny Montell

Donny Montell, originally named Donatas Montvydas, born in 1987 in Vilnius, is a Lithuanian singer and songwriter. He completed 8 grades at the Vilnius Balys Dvarionas Music School and took dance lessons in two groups. Donny Montell achieved his first victory in the music scene at the age of six when he won the competition Dainų dainelė with the song “Aš kiškelis mažas.”

In 2008, Donatas participated in the Lithuanian Song Decade and won first place alongside Aistė Petkevičiūtė. Donny Montell gained even more popularity at prestigious festivals. In 2008, he won the Grand Prix at the competition of the Slavianski Bazaar festival in Belarus, competing against 22 countries. He later tried his luck in the national final for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009 and 2010 but fell just short of victory. In 2010, he achieved second place with Akvilė Kavaliauskaitė in the music project Žvaigždžių duetai 4 and won first place in the dance project Šok su manimi with dancer Katerina Voropaj. He also participated in the TABAMI project, where he performed Michael Jackson’s songs. After the success of the television project “Šok su manimi,” Donny Montell began preparing performances on stage together with a professional dance group. He dedicated a lot of time to participating in prestigious music festivals and appeared as a guest in Belarus at the Slavianski Bazaar held in Vitebsk. He later competed with singers from around the world in the prestigious New Wave 2011 competition.

Donatas had a particularly successful participation in the national selection for Eurovision in 2012, where he became a favorite of the jury and the audience. He won a ticket to the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest held in Baku, Azerbaijan. There, he successfully advanced to the final, and finished in 14th place. In 2013, Donatas Montvydas was invited to be a teacher for one of the participants on the music project Lietuvos balsas. In the same year, his debut album “Norim dar” was released. In 2016, Donatas won the national selection and earned a spot in the 2016 Eurovision final held in Stockholm, Sweden. With his song “I’ve Been Waiting for This Night,” he reached a 9th place in the final.

Around the time of Eurovision 2016, Donny Montell released his second album “#BLCK”. Several songs of the album already had been hit, including his Eurovision song and “Viskas bus gerai” and later the song “Fly”.

In the years 2017-2019 Donny scored several non-album hits, “Screw me up”, “Nieko verta” (With SEL), “Žiūrėk ką padarei” and “Ryto Saulė” being top 10 hits. He became a coach at the Lithuanian version of The Voice Kids.

Donny Montell released his third album “1987” in September 2021. In December 2022 he started a tour around the country with the “2057” tour.