Lera Auerbach


Lera Auerbach is a Soviet-Russian-born American classical composer and pianist.

Early life and education

Auerbach was born to a Jewish family in Chelyabinsk, a city in the Ural Mountains bordering Siberia. Her mother was a piano teacher, many of whose ancestors had also been musicians. Lera began composing her own music at an early age; she later told an interviewer, "I was born to do this, to work in art... I had this feeling when I was four and I had it when I came to New York...". She received permission to visit the United States on a concert tour in 1991; although she spoke no English, she decided to defect so she could stay in the country to pursue her musical career. Unable to afford subway fares, she walked more than a hundred blocks each day to study at the Manhattan School of Music. Auerbach subsequently earned degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where she studied piano with Joseph Kalichstein and composition with Milton Babbitt. Her graduate studies were supported by The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. She also graduated from the piano soloist program of the Hochschule für Musik Hannover.

Performances

Auerbach made her Carnegie Hall debut in May 2002, performing her own Suite for Violin, Piano and Orchestra with violinist Gidon Kremer conducting the Kremerata Baltica. She has appeared as solo pianist at such venues as the Great Concert Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Tokyo's Opera City, Lincoln Center, Herkulessaal, Oslo konserthus, Chicago's Theodore Thomas Orchestra Hall and the Kennedy Center.

Compositions

Auerbach's compositions have been commissioned and performed by a wide array of artists, orchestras and ballet companies including Gidon Kremer, the Kremerata Baltica, David Finckel, Wu Han, Vadim Gluzman, the Tokyo, Kuss, Parker and Petersen String Quartets, the SWR and NDR symphony orchestras, Berg Orchestra, and the Royal Danish Ballet. Auerbach's music has also been commissioned by and performed at Caramoor International Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, Lockenhaus Festival, Bremen Musikfest and Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.
A new commission by The Royal Danish Ballet, to celebrate Hans Christian Andersen's bicentenary, was Lera Auerbach's second collaboration with choreographer John Neumeier. The ballet is a modern rendition of the classic fairy tale The Little Mermaid and was premiered in April 2005 at the then newly opened Copenhagen Opera House.
Her Double Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra, Op. 40, was written in 1997, but not premiered until December 15, 2006, in Stuttgart by the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrey Boreyko; the soloists were violinist Vadim Gluzman and pianist Angela Yoffe. The American premiere was on February 13, 2010, by the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrew Constantine; the soloists were violinist Jennifer Koh and pianist Benjamin Hochman.
In 2007, her Symphony No. 1 "Chimera" received its world premiere by the Düsseldorf Symphony. Other 2007 premieres included Symphony No. 2 "Requiem for a Poet" by Hannover's NDR Radio Philharmonic, as well as A Russian Requiem by the Bremen Philharmonic with the Latvian National Choir and the Estonian Opera Boys Choir.
Vienna's historic Theater an der Wien debuted Auerbach's full-length opera based on her original play Gogol in November 2011.
Auerbach's a cappella opera The Blind was performed in a controversial new production by John La Bouchardière at Lincoln Center for Performing Arts, New York, in July 2013, throughout which the entire audience was blindfolded. Auerbach stated, "The message is that we are the blind. With all our means of communications, we see each other less and connect less. We have less understanding and compassion for other people. We have this screen between us.” In a Gramophone article on Auerbach, 24 Preludes for piano is listed as her breakthrough piece, Sogno di Stabat Mater is described as one of her "most direct and striking compositions", and her score for John Neumeier's adaptation of The Little Mermaid is praised as "vivid". Her 2018 piece Labyrinth was praised by Joshua Kosman as "a formidable and richly textured addition to the piano literature". Her 2019 piece Arctica also garnered acclaim.

Awards and recognition

In 2005 Auerbach received the Hindemith Prize from the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. In the same year she received the Förderpreis Deutschlandfunk and the Bremer Musikfest Prize; she was composer-in-residence in Bremen. And she is notable for being the youngest composer to be represented by the acclaimed music publisher, Internationale Musikverlage Hans Sikorski GmbH & Co. KG of Hamburg, Germany.
In 2007, she was selected as a member of the forum of Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Main orchestral works