Alexandra Vavilina was a Soviet and Russian flutist and music teacher, a soloist with the Leningrad Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, and a professor at the Leningrad, later Saint Petersburg, Conservatory. She was born in Leningrad on February 12, 1928. From 1936 she played alto domra in the folk-instrument orchestra at the Vasileostrovsky House of Pioneers; during the war, while evacuated, she played mandolin.
In 1945 she entered the Rimsky-Korsakov Music College, where she studied flute with Pyotr Fedotov and graduated in 1951. She continued her flute studies with Fedotov at the Leningrad Conservatory from 1951 to 1956, then completed postgraduate study there in 1961 with I. F. Janus.
From 1955 to 1962, Vavilina was a solo flutist with the Andreev Folk Instruments Orchestra of the Leningrad Radio Committee. In 1962 she won a competition for a solo flute position with the Leningrad Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. She played in its concerts, recordings, and tours in the Soviet Union and many other countries until 1989, under chief conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky, whom she later married. Her repertoire included works by Ravel, Debussy, Mendelssohn, and Shostakovich. A contemporary account praised her sound, intonation, phrasing, technical command, and sense of style.
Vavilina taught at the music school affiliated with the Leningrad Conservatory from 1955 to 1962 and began teaching flute at the conservatory in 1969. She became an associate professor in 1977 and a professor in 1987. Her students included prizewinners at international and national competitions and soloists with major Russian orchestras and opera houses. She received the title Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1974 and Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1983, and was an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts. In 2006 she served on the jury of the International Aurèle Nicolet Flute Competition in China. She also prepared and published her husband's diaries.
Vavilina died in Saint Petersburg on September 20, 2021. The article reports that she apparently died of carbon monoxide poisoning during a fire in her apartment.