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Lidiya Yankovskaya (born March 26, 1986) is a Russian-American conductor. She is the Artistic Director of Juventas Music and the Refugee Orchestra Project, and Music Director with Commonwealth Lyric Theater.

Early Life

Yankovskaya was born in St Petersburg, Russia. She began her studies aged five on piano and violin at the Russian Specialized Music Schools, before joining the St. Petersburg Children's Choir. She emigrated to the United States in 1995, moving to Albany, New York, where she attended Guilderland High School.

Career

Yankovskaya made her conducting debut aged seventeen, leading her high school orchestra in the first movement of Dvořak's Symphony no. 7. She continued her conducting studies during her undergraduate degree at Vassar College, conducting the Mahagonny Ensemble, Vassar College Orchestra, Georgy Firtich’s opera ‘’Victory Over the Sun’’ and Sondheim’s ‘’Merrily We Roll’’ Along with the Department of Drama. Moving to Boston to attend Boston University, Yankovskaya began conducting Boston University Women’s Chorale, First Church In Belmont, Boston Opera Collaborative and became Assistant Conductor for Zamir Chorale of Boston.

From 2011-2015, Yankovskaya was Music Director of Lowell House Opera, which won First Place in the American Prize during her tenure for ‘’A Midsummer Night’s Dream’’ (Britten). She also conducted the first fully-staged, Russian-language production in the U.S. of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘’Snegurochka’’. In 2013 Yankovskaya was appointed Artistic Director to Juventas New Music, with which she had worked as an associate conductor and then music director since 2009. Award winning productions with Juventas include the world premiere of Isaac Schankler’s ‘’Light and Power’’, which won The National Opera Association Award and The American Prize (best professional production category). Also in 2014, she became assistant conductor to Federico Cortese and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director to Commonwealth Lyric Theater, with which she won National Opera Association Award for Best Production in the Professional Category for Rachmaninoff's ‘’Aleko’’. From 2014, Yankovskaya has worked regularly with Center for Contemporary Opera NYC, Beth Morrison Projects, American Lyric Theater, and Gotham Chamber Opera. In the summer of 2014, Yankovskaya served as a Conducting Fellow under Lorin Maazel at the Castleton Festival and worked as a chorus master for several programs with Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

In 2015, Yankovskaya was chosen to represent the USA at Dallas Opera's inaugural Institute for Women Conductors, a prestigious program “designed to further the careers of distinctively talented female conductors”. In the same year, she was invited to be a conducting fellow at the Cabrillo Festival, under the tutelage of Marin Alsop, and was awarded the Honorable Mention in the Taki Concordia Fellowship.

Since July 2016, Yankovskaya has been represented by ADA Artists Management.

Additional projects in the 2016-2017 season include conducting Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra, Opera Saratoga, and Brookline Symphony.

Mentors - Conducting teachers and mentors have included Lorin Maazel, Kenneth Kiesler, Ann Howard Jones, David Hoose, Joshua Jacobson, Eduardo Navega, and Christine Howlett. She has also participated in workshops and masterclasses with Marin Alsop, James Ross, Gustav Meier, JoAnn Falletta, Mark Gibson, Arthur Fagen, and Simon Carrington. Additionally, Yankovskaya has studied voice with Sharon Daniels, Director of the Boston University Opera Institute, and collaborative piano with Shiela Kibbe, chair of Boston University's Collaborative Piano Department.

Refugee Orchestra Project

In 2015, while traveling in Europe during the start of the Syrian refugee crisis, Yankovskaya became dismayed by the increasing scale of the crisis, and the conditions refugees faced. Soon after returning to America, she created the Refugee Orchestra Project to demonstrate the positive impact refugees can have upon society. About the project, Yankovskaya says: “I was ...surprised by the widespread hostility exhibited by many, despite the United States' rigorous immigration policies and the ocean separating us from the flood of refugees. It quickly became apparent that many of my friends and colleagues did not know that I came to this country as a refugee...I decided to organize the Refugee Orchestra Project, as a way to demonstrate, through music, the critical role that these individuals play in our cultural landscape." Inaugural concerts took place in summer 2016 at First Church in Cambridge and First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn, the latter of which was live-streamed, viewed over one hundred thousand times. Since then, Yankovskaya has given radio interviews with Senator Bill Bradley, and ROP has been selected as a finalist for the Adolf Busch Award.

Education

Yankovskaya graduated from Vassar College with a Bachelor of Arts in Music and Philosophy. She received Phi Beta Kappa with Departmental Honors and the Francis Walker Prize, given to the top pianist in the graduating class. She then obtained her Master of Music in Conducting, Pi Kappa Lambda, on a full tuition Dean's Scholarship, from Boston University.

Personal Life

Yankovskaya met her husband Daniel Schwartz, a lawyer, at Vassar College. They married in 2010 and live in Brooklyn.

Yankovskaya is a member of the Senior Common of Lowell House, Harvard University.