CAMDEN – There’s an air of mystery about Gintare, her music and her life. And the Lithuanian-born singer-songwriter prefers it that way.

“In a lot of ways I just want to be left alone to do music,” said Gintare, who goes by just her first name professionally and has lived in midcoast Maine since July. “I’ve never tried to be famous. I just try to do my music.”

Gintare, who will make her Maine concert debut Friday night at the Camden Opera House, may not be famous in the United States yet. But just two years ago her album “Earthless” reached No. 10 on the United Kingdom charts, and a single off that album, “Guilty,” earned top-20 status.

Gintare describes her sound as “pop avant-garde,” an ethereal blend of Euro-pop and classical music influenced by the likes of Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Massive Attack and Prodigy. Comparisons are to Bjork, Enya and Kate Bush, but Gintare’s music is as much about her unique life as about the impact of other voices.

Gintare was born in the city of Kaunas to a family with roots in nobility – her father’s ancestors owned approximately a third of Lithuania in the 14th century.

“But growing up we didn’t know much about [being from nobility] at the time because the Russian Communists controlled the country then, and the flags and anything else that had to do with things before the Russians took over had to be hidden,” she said.

Her family also has a rich musical tradition running four generations deep. The daughter of two renowned orchestra conductors, Gintare was composing her own classical piano sonatas by age 6. She studied at both a traditional school and a children’s music academy, and by her early teens she became a star in her native country, landing the lead role in the rock musical “Chasing the Fire,” which played before crowds of 100,000. While attending college, she also found the time to release three albums by age 16.

She was, simply put, the toast of a nation.

But she also was a public figure from a famous and fiercely anti-Communist family living in a nation still controlled at the time by the Soviet Union. With that status came considerable personal trepidation – particularly given the evolving independence movement in Lithuania at the time. Because of that environment, and with many relatives already living in the United States, she left behind her music career and moved to New Haven, Conn., becoming an American citizen in 1982.

“There were a lot of things going on,” she said. “And I had achieved everything I could with my music there.”

Gintare didn’t just leave her career behind, she took the next eight years off while getting married, having two children and spending time living in both the United States and Europe. But by the late 1980s, she was restless to revive her music career. “I fell back on what I knew, and it was something I definitely wanted to do again,” she said.

Gintare moved to England full time, and by 1992 was rediscovered by the legendary Gus Dudgeon, who had produced such classics as “Tiny Dancer,” “Levon” and “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” for Elton John.

“I spent the next few years desperately trying to be signed by a recording company,” Gintare said. “But I was considered commercially challenging.”

In 1997 she got a new manager, Adrian Hutchins, and two years later she finally got a contract with EMI-Sony. “Earthless” and “Guilty” soon followed, and Gintare was a star on the concert scene as well as through appearances on various MTV outlets in Europe.

But just as quickly as she stepped to the musical forefront in the U.K., she left it behind and returned to the United States for personal reasons. Initially she lived in New York City (“I moved here straight into September 11”), but now she has settled in Maine – and is reviving her career again, albeit in a low-key manner.

“Starting with my music again happened just by accident, really,” she said. “I planned just to live quietly here. I’d had enough of moving on to the next big thing. I wanted to take time to see what the quiet life was about.”

Where her career will take her next, Gintare isn’t sure, though the American arts scene has been a source of success for many of her relatives, among them two principal dancers with the Boston Opera, three composers and two novelists.

But as the movers arrived to take her baby grand piano to the Camden Opera House for her upcoming concert, she was merely excited to begin the next chapter of her own musical being. “Life is so mysterious; everything is mysterious to me,” she said. “I don’t know if others see me that way. I don’t see myself as mysterious. I just love music incredibly. I’m so happy when I’m doing my music.”

Gintare’s concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 27, at the Camden Opera House. Tickets are $18 in advance and $20 at the door and are available by visiting www.villagesoup.com or calling 236-7963.