Lydia Kovalenko graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where she studied in the class of Y. Komarova, A. Yuryev and M. Gantvarg. She has won the IX All-Russian Violin Competition and the International Shostakovich competition in Hanover (where she got a special prize for the best performance of works by D. Shostakovich).

Teaching at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, she is also actively engaged in concert activities. Along with her permanent work in the chamber orchestra ‘Divertissement’ (Lydia Kovalenko is the concertmaster of the orchestra), she performs solo and chamber programmes on the best stages of St. Petersburg, tours as a soloist and as a member of the St. Petersburg Chamber Soloists ensemble across Europe, Japan, China and Brazil.

In the recent years, Lydia Kovalenko has given concerts not only as a violinist, but also as a violist in various chamber groups with such musicians as S. Stadler, I. Ioff, A. Massarsky, A. Bakhl, F. Fiore, and S. Chiesa.

She recorded several CDs performing works by Schubert, Shostakovich, Schoenberg, Schnittke, B. Tishchenko and B. Tchaikovsky and other composers.