Lera Auerbach

Lera Auerbach exhibits extraordinary ability both as a pianist and as a composer whose works have been requested by a broad range of musicians and ensembles. She has additionally taken up the baton and works as a poet and visual artist.

Born on October 21, 1973, in Chelyabinsk, east of the Ural mountain range near the Siberian border, Auerbach revealed her keyboard promise at an early age, making her orchestral debut at eight. By twelve she had composed an opera that caused a sensation upon staging, after which a touring production reached audiences across the Soviet Union. At seventeen she traveled to the United States for a concert tour yet chose to defect, becoming one of the final Soviet artists to take that step. She then enrolled at Juilliard, studying composition with Milton Babbitt and piano with Joseph Kalichstein.

Auerbach is equally esteemed for her poetry. Her debut collection, Sorokolunie ("Forty Moons"), gathered verses written as early as age eleven; published in 1995, it brought her the title "Poet of the Year" from the International Pushkin Society. Although her music commands respect in Russia, her literary output enjoys greater familiarity there, and selected poems now form part of the modern Russian language curriculum in her native country.

In 2000 she undertook the first of two artist residencies at the Baden-Baden residence of Johannes Brahms under the auspices of the International Brahms Society. The following year Gidon Kremer invited her to the Lockenhaus Festival, where sixteen of her compositions received performances. She completed her piano training with Einar Steen-Nøkleberg at the Hannover Höchschüle für Musik in 2002. In 2003 Vadim Gluzman and Angela Yoffe issued the first all-Auerbach disc on BIS, titled Lera Auerbach: 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano. The recording met with approval, prompting BIS to issue further albums, among them the 2006 release Lera Auerbach Plays Her Preludes and Dreams featuring the composer herself. Far from remaining a limited enterprise, her music has been commissioned and performed worldwide by artists including the Peterson Quartett, David Finckel, Wu Han, and the Royal Danish Ballet. Her first full-length opera, Gogol, drawn from her own play, received its premiere in 2011.

Auerbach’s output spans ballets, symphonies, concertos, instrumental and vocal chamber music, and piano works. Her Violin Concerto No. 4 ("NYx: Fractured Dreams"), commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was introduced in 2017 by Alan Gilbert with that orchestra and soloist Leonidas Kavakos. In 2019 she appeared as piano soloist in the premiere of her Symphony No. 4 ("Arctica") under Teddy Abrams with the Washington Chorus, National Symphony Orchestra, and Oslo Philharmonic. Together with Marilyn Nelson she authored the children’s book A Is for Oboe: The Orchestra's Alphabet, published in 2021. The following year the Avita Duo released a recording of her violin-and-piano music on the Hänssler Classic label.