“The 4FUN” was formed in 2001 in Vilnius. The group performs in music clubs, festivals and other music events in Lithuania and neighbouring countries.

“The 4FUN” was the biggest success in 2007, when they won the National Eurovision Song Contest and represented Lithuania in ESC final in Helsinki with a ballad “Love or leave” written by the leader of the group Julia Ritchik.

In 2004 the group took the 6^th place in the final of a music TV contest (Lithuanian Television) with a Lithuanian ‘cover’ version of “Vaya con Dios” ‘Nah-neh-nah’, got a special award at ‘Visagino country’ international country music festival and created a show programme ‘DISCO’ for the “Bike Show Millennium’2004″ festival in Kaunas.

The group have won several LCMA (Lithuanian Country Musicians Association) awards: Julia was the best vocal in 1998, Laimonas was the best instrumentalist in 2005 and the “4FUN” was awarded for the best debut in 2003.

“The 4FUN” have been twice chosen as a support slot – in summer 2007 they opened an American blues and rock veteran Joe Cocker’s performance in Vilnius, in autumn 2008 – a European blues and pop-folk star Katie Melua’s concert in Vilnius.

In 2004  ”The 4FUN” released their first CD – a live concert album “Gyvas”, which means both ‘live’ and ‘alive’ in Lithuanian. In May 2007 a ‘Eurovisional’ single “Love or leave” was released, which contained the versions of the song in English and Lithuanian and two remixes of the English version. In April 2009 the band released a double album ” Dėlionė”/”A puzzle”, which contains original songs in Lithuanian on one CD and in English on the other CD.

The present members of “The 4FUN” are:

Julia Ritchik (vocal, 6-string and 12-string accoustic guitars, songwriter)

Justas Jasenka (accoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, vocal)

Rimantas Jasenka (bass guitar, vocal)

Laimonas Staniulionis (drums and percussion) 

The leader of the group Julia Ritchik finished a music school in Vilnius (piano faculty). She started her singing career in 1994 in a blues group “The Road Band” (she stayed with the band for longer than 6 years and recorded 6 albums). At the same time she sang in the “Acoustic trio” and recorded an album with them in 1995, and in the “Country Blues Session Band” under the leadership of a well-known Lithuanian fiddler and composer A.Klova (in 2001 the band released an album, in 1999 won the second award in an international country music contest “Country Europe” in Mragowo, Poland – Julia sang for the band both contest songs, one of them was her original song “Ant krantu”.)

In1994-2001 with the above mentioned groups Julia toured the Baltic states, Poland, the Netherlands, Byelorussia, Russia and Ukraine and took part in numerous blues, country music and jazz festivals.

Ex-members of the band

Tomas Valeika  (the bass guitar from 2001 till 2006)
Alexandr Litz (the lead guitar from 2001 till 2002)
Artur Zaikovski (the lead guitar from 2002 till 2003)
Andžej Zujevič  (the lead guitar from 2003 till 2008)