Lera is a Soviet-born Austrian-American classical composer, conductor and concert pianist.

Lera Auerbach was born to a Jewish family in Chelyabinsk, a city in the Ural Mountains. Her mother was a piano teacher, many of whose ancestors had also been musicians. Lera began composing her own music at an early age; she later told an interviewer, "I was born to do this, to work in art... I had this feeling when I was four and I had it when I came to New York...". She received permission to visit the United States on a concert tour in 1991; although she spoke no English, she decided to stay in the country to pursue her musical career. She graduated from New York's Juilliard School in piano (under Joseph Kalichstein) and composition (under Milton Babbitt and Robert Beaser). Her graduate studies were supported by The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. She also studied comparative literature at Columbia University and earned a piano diploma at the Hochschule für Musik Hannover.