Lera Auerbach, an Artist Without Borders

“Passion Creates Passion”

“Music can overcome the limitations of words. I can draw from all the sources I love. Passion creates passion.” — Lera Auerbach

“Music is my life. It is impossible to separate my life from music because they are so intensely intertwined.”

It would be easy to define Lera Auerbach by just one form of artistic expression— as a conductor, a composer, a pianist, a writer, or a visual artist. But Lera Auerbach is all of these. This is how she creates. Each discipline serves as both inspiration and a springboard to the next. When Auerbach, the composer, completes a new piece on manuscript paper, it is entirely possible that Auerbach, the visual artist, will add a sculpture or an illustrated book to expand and complete the overall impression of her work. Her opera Gogol—just one of many examples—began as a theater play before she transformed it into an opera libretto. Her way of being a creative person means making possibilities tangible and following inspiration wherever it may lead. Everything influences everything, and everything is interconnected.

Over the past three decades, Auerbach has composed around 180 works. She has collaborated with all major orchestras worldwide, from the New York Philharmonic to the Dresden Staatskapelle. Her music has been performed in the most prestigious concert halls and at the most significant festivals, from Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Musikverein to the Salzburg Festival. She composed the ballet The Little Mermaid in collaboration with choreographer John Neumeier. Her music frequently engages with contemporary events and social issues: her Violin Concerto No. 2 is titled September 11, and her Russian Requiem addressed state repression in her birthplace as early as 2006. Her works also include Ode to Peace, commissioned by the Dresden Staatskapelle, Symphony No. 4 Arctica, created for National Geographic, and Symphony No. 6, which explores the fragmentation and healing of a divided world. Now, however, it is time for another chapter in the ongoing story of her life: conducting.

“While composing, playing the piano, and literature remain essential parts of my life, conducting gives me a profound sense of expressive freedom and allows me to share visions and insights based on all my past experiences,” says Auerbach about this aspect of her artistry. She emphasizes: “This is not a sudden development but a vision I have had from the beginning. To realize it, I first had to build a large catalog of my own compositions. Many creatives who both composed and conducted were pushed into the limelight too quickly and never had the time to fully develop their potential as composers.”

Auerbach’s success as a conductor proves her right. She appeared as a conductor at the Wien Modern festival and led the Residentie Orkest during a two-week festival in The Hague dedicated to all aspects of her artistic work. With the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, she performed Mozart piano concertos while conducting from the keyboard. Her clear message: “If nothing happens, and you leave a concert as the same person you were before, then you’ve wasted two hours of your life.”

And this is what it can sound like: “Conductor Lera Auerbach, compassionate and communicative, led the orchestra with true mastery, creating a connection that made the music shine and resonate deeply.” (Gazzetta del Sud on a concert featuring Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, conducted by Lera Auerbach in Italy)

Biography

Lera Auerbach’s journey into the world of art began as a poet, with several published works before she turned 18. Born in 1973 in Chelyabinsk, in the Ural Mountains, she was a virtuoso pianist from early childhood and composed her first opera at the age of twelve. In 1991, during a concert tour in the United States, she made the spontaneous decision at just 17 years old to remain in New York—without a safety net and without speaking English—while the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse. She seized her freedom and started a new life in the U.S., where she was later granted American citizenship in recognition of her extraordinary talent. In 2021, the Austrian government also awarded her citizenship for her significant contributions to music and the arts, underscoring her international influence. She studied piano and composition at the Juilliard School and comparative literature at Columbia University. In 2002, she completed her concert diploma at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover. That same year, she debuted at Carnegie Hall with her Suite for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra, performed by Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica. Her extensive catalog now encompasses nearly every musical genre, from chamber music and orchestral works to opera and ballet, performed worldwide by leading soloists, orchestras, and theaters.

Today, conducting is at the center of her artistic focus. It defines her current artistic expression: “Standing on the podium, creating vast musical landscapes, sharing a vision of expression with the orchestra, drawing from my experience in various art forms, and integrating these currents into the ocean of the orchestra and the stage—that is my greatest joy.”This role enriches her artistic voice and expands her legacy as she brings her unique vision to symphonic stages worldwide.

As a poet of both words and music, her literary work includes poetry and prose collections, novellas, and numerous contributions to newspapers and magazines. Auerbach was named Poet of the Year by the International Pushkin Society, and her first English-language book, Excess of Being, explores the art of aphorisms. In 2022, her children’s book A is for Oboe (Random House) won the AudioFile Best Audiobook Award, and she received the Robert Creeley Memorial Award, leading to the publication of her poetry manuscript Forever Music. She remains active as a visual artist, with her works being collected and exhibited. A career that would suffice for multiple lifetimes—yet she continues her journey: “There is no reason to keep something locked in its cage and not connect it,” says Lera Auerbach. “For me, art must feel larger than life. Whether it is music, visual art, or literature, art is what remains of our time.”

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