Lidiya Yankovskaya is a fiercely committed advocate for Slavic masterpieces, operatic rarities, and contemporary works on the leading edge of classical music.

She has conducted more than 40 world premieres, including 18 operas, and her strength as a visionary collaborator has guided new perspectives on staged and symphonic repertoire from Carmen and Queen of Spades to Price and Prokofiev.

Previously for ENO: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

Her daring performances before and amid the pandemic earned recognition from the Chicago Tribune, which praised her as ‘the very model of how to survive adversity, and also how to thrive in it’, while naming her 2020 Chicagoan of the Year.

In 2023, she makes a series of major orchestral debuts, including performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Utah Symphony.

She also debuts at Santa Fe Opera in a new production of Dvořák’s Rusalka and at Staatsoper Hamburg with Eugene Onegin. She returns to Chicago Symphony Orchestra for their MusicNOW series before conducting the Chicago premieres of David T. Little’s Soldier Songs and a new Francesca Zambello production of The Nose at Chicago Opera Theater, where she serves as Elizabeth Morse and Genius Music Director.