Conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya joins me and speaks about her experience preparing for, conducting, and navigating a career thriving between concert halls and opera pits. Russian-American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya is a fiercely committed advocate for Russian masterpieces, operatic rarities, and contemporary works on the leading edge of classical music. She has conducted more than 40 world premieres, including 16 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.  Yankovskaya has recently made major debuts with Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Symphony, and conducted the symphony orchestras of Omaha, Pasadena, and Fort Worth. As Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater, she has led the Chicago premieres of Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick, Rachmaninov’s Aleko, Joby Talbot’s Everest, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, and Adamo’s Becoming Santa Claus. Elsewhere, she has recently conducted Carmen at Houston Grand Opera, Don Giovanni at Seattle Opera, Pia de’ Tolomei at Spoleto Festival USA, Il barbiere di Siviglia at Wolf Trap Opera, Ellen West at New York’s Prototype Festival, and the world premiere of Taking Up Serpents at Washington National Opera.