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Lera Auerbach, Featured Composer
Russian-American composer and pianist Lera Auerbach is one of the most
exciting new voices among today’s young composers.
Characterized by its stylistic freedom and juxtaposition of tonal and atonal
musical language, Auerbach’s music explores a wide range of forms and genres,
from opera to chamber music. Also a prolific writer, she has published three
volumes of poetry and prose, and writes her own librettos. Her ballet The Little
Mermaid (choreography: John Neumeier) originally commissioned by Hamburg
Ballett and the Royal Danish Ballet, has been performed over 100 times
worldwide since its premiere in Copenhagen in 2005 and has just received its
acclaimed US premiere with San Francisco Ballet. She has been commissioned
by Vienna’s Theater an der Wien to write a full-length opera based on her own
original play Gogol which was premiered in November 2011. Auerbach became
Composer in Residence with the Staatskapelle Dresden from the beginning of the
2011/12 season. In October 2011, her full-length ballet Cinderella was premiered
by the Finnish National Ballet and her a-capella-opera The Blind received its
premiere at the Konzerthaus Berlin with the Berliner Kammeroper and
Vocalconsort Berlin.
She has collaborated with the Flanders National Ballet, Antwerp, 2009 (11:11,
choreography by Terence Kohler), Canada National Ballet in Toronto in 2009
(Watch Her, choreography by Aszur Barton), the China National Ballet, Beijing in
2010 (Take Your Time, choreography by Terence Kohler).
A virtuoso performer, Auerbach continues the great tradition of pianist-composers
of the 19th and 20th centuries, and appears regularly at renowned venues such
as the Lincoln Center in New York, Symphony Hall Chicago, Moscow
Conservatory, Tokyo Opera City and Herkulessaal München. She made her
Carnegie Hall debut in 2002, performing her own Suite for Violin, Piano and
Orchestra with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica. Her music has been
presented at Carnegie Hall each season since then. She also appears regularly
at the Verbier Festival and has been Composer in Residence at the 2011 edition
of the festival.
Lera Auerbach’s work has been performed by conductors such as Charles Dutoit,
Andris Nelsons, Neeme Järvi and Andrey Boreyko and by orchestras including
the New York Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Bamberger Symphoniker, and
Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart. Her recently completed compositions include
her Symphony No. 1, Chimera, which was commissioned and premiered by the
Düsseldorf Symphoniker; Symphony No. 2, Requiem for a Poet, commissioned
and premiered by the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover; A Russian Requiem
co-commissioned by Musikfest Bremen, Philharmonische Gesellschaft Bremen
and Semana de Musica Religiosa Cuenca and premiered by the Bremer
Philharmoniker. She has been Composer-in-Residence at the Bremer Musikfest,
at the 20th Anniversary Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, Lockenhaus
Music Festival in Austria, Les Muséiques Festival in Basel, and with the
Orchestra Ensemble Kanasawa in Japan. She has also written works for the
Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Verbier Festival, Caramoor, Lucerne Festival
and the Aspen Music Festival and has been Artist-in-Residence with the
Deutschlandfunk.
She regularly collaborates with soloists and ensembles including Hilary Hahn,
Vadim Gluzman, Leonidas Kavakos, Julian Rachlin, Philippe Quint, Gautier
Capuçon, Alisa Weilerstein, David Finckel, Kim Kashkashian, Tokyo String
Quartet, Borromeo String Quartet, Artemis String Quartet, Vanbrugh String
Quartet, Kremerata Baltica, Camerata Pacifica, and the Chamber Music Society
of Lincoln Center.
Lera Auerbach was born in the city of Chelyabinsk, lying at the gateway to
Siberia. After writing her first opera at twelve years of age, she moved to the USA
in 1991 where she studied piano and composition at New York’s prestigious
Juilliard School. In addition she attended classes in comparative literature at
Columbia University. Her piano studies took her to the Hochschule für Musik und
Theater in Hannover. She was awarded the prestigious Hindemith Prize by the
Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany, Deutschlandfunk’s Förderpreis,
selected as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow, and in 2007 she was selected as a
member of the Young Global Leaders forum by the World Economic Forum in
Davos, Switzerland.
Lera Auerbach is the youngest composer on the roster of Hamburg’s prestigious
international music publishing company Hans Sikorski.
2011/12 season only. Please contact HarrisonParrott if you wish to edit this biography.