| Country | Russia |
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| Occupation | Composer, Teacher |
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Elena Firsova was born in Leningrad on 21 March 1950 into a family of scientists. The family moved to Moscow in 1956. She made her first attempt at composition at the age of eleven. She studied at a Music School 1963-66, a Music College 1966-70, and the Moscow Conservatory 1970-75 where her teachers were Alexander Pirumov (composition), Yuri Kholopov (analysis) and Nikolai Rakov (orchestration). She established contact of a crucial musical importance with a composer Edison Denisov and Philip Herschkowitz, the pupil of Anton von Webern. In August 1972 married the composer Dmitri Smirnov. Now they have two children, Philip and Alissa. Since 1979 she had many performances in Europe and the USA and received many commissions including BBC, PROMS, and WRD. Boosey & Hawkes, Sikorski, Schirmer, Schott and Sovetsky Kompozitor printed dozens of her scores. She has been composer in residence in Bard College, USA (1990), in St John’s College, Cambridge, UK (1992), and later in the same year at Dartington Hall, Devon. From 1993 to 1997 she has been appointed as visiting professor and composer in residence at Keele University. Since 1998 settled in St Albans. From 1999 until 2001 she taught composition at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. The premiere of her major work Requem to Akhmatova poem took place at the Berlin Konzerthouse, on 6th of September 2003. She has written about a hundred compositions in many different genres including operas, oratory, cantatas, orhestral works, concertos, chamber ensembles, solo works and so on. Recent commissions are from Concertgebouw Orchestra, Brodsky Quartet, Manchester Wind Orchestra, Schubert Ensemble, Freden Festival and EXPO 2000 (Hanover). Her music is available through Publishers Boosey & Hawkes, London, Hans Sikorski, Hamburg and G.Schirmer, New York.
