Lera Gehner

Lera Gehner was born on January 8, 1971, in a musical family. Her father is the renowned St. Petersburg composer and free jazz musician Yuri Kasyanik. Lera studied violin and piano at a music school, sang in the Children's Choir of Radio and Television, and studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Theatre Arts, while simultaneously pursuing choreography and sports.

She worked at the Kudesniki Theatre Studio, the Rock Opera, and the Siniy Most theaters. Since 1991, she has lived permanently in Hamburg, where she has undertaken a number of interesting projects — co-authoring a documentary about Russian culture and performing in Hamburg clubs as a performer of Russian and Gypsy romances and as a jazz vocalist.

From 1995 to 1998, while in St. Petersburg, she collaborated with the Art-Klinika Theatre, founded the Punk-Jazz Mixtooroff group, played several roles in television films, wrote several scripts, and actively participated in avant-garde rock shows at the center of St. Petersburg's underground scene at "Pushkinskaya 10" art space.

In 1998, she returned to Hamburg and achieved fame in local clubs by founding the L.E.R.A. project (rock, blues, reggae, and jazz standards). She performed with many German musicians and also participated in Vladimir Chekasin's show at the Mon Martha Theatre. Three years later, she returned to Russia and founded several ensembles in St. Petersburg to perform contemporary jazz. Her most successful collaboration was with saxophonist and arranger Alexey Popov and the musicians of the group Doo-Bop Sound. Thus emerged the funk show group Lera Gehner Band, whose repertoire includes completely original versions of famous jazz standards.

Her superb vocals (a combination of a matte or husky contralto with a powerful, blues-like upper register), sense of funk and swing, colossal temperament, and natural artistry have made Lera Gehner a sought-after performer on the St. Petersburg jazz scene.

The Lera Gehner Band has performed at festivals and given solo concerts in Tver and Obninsk, Kazan and Stavropol, Rostov-on-Don and Yaroslavl, Dnepropetrovsk and Minsk, as well as in Finland. The musicians collaborate with the Moscow funk fusion group Trans Atlantic. Lera is also known for her dazzling performance in the play "The Vagina Monologues."