About this Artist

Conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya is a fiercely committed advocate for Slavic masterpieces, operatic rarities, and contemporary works on the leading edge of classical music. Since her appointment as Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater in 2017, Yankovskaya has led the Chicago premieres of Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick, Rachmaninoff’s Aleko, Joby Talbot’s Everest, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, and Mark Adamo’s Becoming Santa Claus, as well as the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Freedom Ride. Her daring performances earned recognition from the Chicago Tribune, which named her 2020’s “Chicagoan of the Year.”

In the 2022/23 season, Yankovskaya makes a series of major orchestral debuts, including performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Sacramento Philharmonic, Knoxville Symphony, and Richmond Symphony. She returns to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for its MusicNOW series, conducting a work by CSO Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery. She also debuts at Santa Fe Opera in a new production of Dvořák’s Rusalka, at Staatsoper Hamburg with Eugene Onegin, and at English National Opera, conducting a new staged production of Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. She leads the long-awaited world premieres of Edward Tulane at Minnesota Opera and The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing at Chicago Opera Theater, where she also conducts the Chicago premiere of Szymanowski’s Król Roger.

Yankovskaya recently conducted Carmen at Houston Grand Opera, Don Giovanni at Seattle Opera, Pia de’ Tolomei at Spoleto Festival USA, Der Freischütz at Wolf Trap Opera, Ellen West at New York’s Prototype Festival, and Taking Up Serpents at Washington National Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival. On the concert stage, her recent engagements include Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Omaha Symphony, and Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields with Bang on a Can All-Stars at Carnegie Hall.

An alumna of the Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors and the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship, Yankovskaya has served as assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel, assisted Vladimir Jurowski via a London Philharmonic fellowship, and was featured in the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview. She is a two-time recipient of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award.