Svetlana Bezrodnaya is a Soviet and Russian violinist and conductor, and the artistic director of the State Academic Chamber Vivaldi Orchestra. She was born on February 12, 1934, at the Barvikha sanatorium to physician Boris Levin and singer Irina Shepshelevich-Lobovskaya.
She studied at the Central Music School and then at the Moscow Conservatory, where her teachers included Abram Yampolsky and David Oistrakh’s colleague Dmitry Tsyganov. After graduating, she became a soloist with Mosconcert. She taught at the Central Music School for more than 20 years, developed her own violin teaching method, and founded a violin ensemble made up of students from her class. The ensemble toured widely in the Soviet Union and abroad; many of her students won awards at international competitions.
In 1989, Bezrodnaya founded the Vivaldi Chamber Orchestra and performed with it as a soloist. She collaborated with Yuri Bashmet, Igor Oistrakh, Nikolai Petrov, Viktor Tretyakov, Valentin Feigin, Maya Yashvili, and Dmitry Mazhukov. The orchestra’s repertoire includes more than a thousand works, ranging from classical music to jazz and popular music.
Bezrodnaya was named Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1991 and People’s Artist of the Russian Federation in 1996. Her honors also include the Order for Merit to the Fatherland, Fourth Class, awarded in 2019, and the Order for Merit in Culture and the Arts, awarded in 2025.
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