Former Chicago Opera Theater Music Director to Relocate to London

Former Chicago Opera Theater (COT) music director Lidiya Yankovskaya is set to become the latest classical musician to leave the United States, citing both professional and political reasons.

Speaking to Chicago public radio station WBEZ, she contrasted the strong public funding for cultural institutions abroad with what she described as dwindling federal support in the US — a situation exacerbated by the second Trump administration’s cuts to the arts. These include eliminating funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and abruptly dismissing board members at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. COT, where Yankovskaya served as music director from 2017 to 2024, is among the Chicago organisations affected by the loss of NEA funding.

This Saturday, the 39-year-old conductor will appear with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, while her belongings are already en route to her new home in London.

Yankovskaya, who has conducted extensively in Europe, noted that having a base there will make travel easier, especially for longer opera productions. She is mother to two young children, aged six and three.

Born in St Petersburg in 1986, she moved to the US at the age of nine and studied at Vassar College and Boston University. In addition to her work at COT, she has guest-conducted for Washington National Opera, American Lyric Theater in New York, and the New York City Center for Contemporary Opera.