Lydia Kavina

Who is Lydia Kavina?

Lydia Yevgenyevna Kavina is a Russian theremin player, and is currently the leading performing musician on the instrument.

The granddaughter of Léon Theremin's first cousin, a Soviet anthropologist and primatologist Mikhail Nesturkh, Kavina was born in Moscow and began studying the instrument under the direction of Léon Theremin when she was nine years old. Five years later, she gave her first theremin concert, which marked the beginning of a musical career that has so far led to more than 1000 theatre, radio, and television performances around the world.

Kavina has appeared as a solo performer at such prestigious venues as the Bolshoi Zal of the Moscow Conservatory, Moscow International Art Centre with National Philarmonic of Russia under Vladimir Spivakov and Bellevue Palace in Berlin, the residence of the German President. She has also performed at leading festivals, including Caramoor with the Orchestra St. Luke's, New York's Lincoln Center Festival, Holland Music Festival, Martinu Festival, Electronic Music Festival in Burge and Moscow “Avantgarde”.

Kavina performs most of the classical theremin repertoire, including popular works for theremin by Bohuslav Martinů, Joseph Schillinger, and Spellbound by Miklos Rozsa, as well as Equatorial by Edgard Varèse and the lesser known Testament by Nicolas Obouchov.