Elena Yakovleva began playing both piano and flute as a child in Kaliningrad, Russia and later graduated from the Rachmaninoff Music College with Honors. Elena continued her studies at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold and at the Folkwanghochschule Essen, Germany, studying under Prof. Hans-Jörg Wegner and Prof. Gunhild Ott, and later, under renown Jeanne Baxtresser as a Performance Residence Program student at the Carnegie Mellon University on full scholarship.

Ms. Yakovleva has received her Master of Music, Graduate Performance Diploma in Flute and Graduate Performance Diploma in Chamber Music with Marina Piccinini at Peabody Conservatory on full scholarship.

 

A scholarship recipient from the Russian Ministry of Culture, she was selected for the artist roster of Yehudi Menuhin’s foundation “Live Music Now”, has been a winner of the “New Names” Festival in Moscow, the “Villa Musica” Award, in 2006 was a prizewinner in the New York Flute Club Competition and in 2011 prizewinner in the Baltimore Music Club Competition.

 

She has played with the Baltimore Symphony, Annapolis Symphony and the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestras, toured as soloist, with the Rachmaninoff Wind Quintet and the Kaliningrad Symphony Orchestra throughout Russia and Europe.

 

She has performed in the Peabody “Side by Side” project with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop and Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, participated in the Summer Opera Theatre of Washington, D.C., Kent Blossom Festival and National Orchestral Institute.

 

Elena Yakovleva was selected to represent Peabody in performances at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore, and also was a featured performer at Peabody’s 2008 graduation ceremony when she received her Master of Music degree.

 

Summer of 2009 Elena performed as a soloist with Kaliningrad Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Alexander Andreev on the opening of IX International Music Festival “Service to Bach”.

Elena Yakovleva also holds the Piccolo and Third Flute Chair with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra and Maryland Symphony Orchestra. She has joined the Richmond Symphony Orchestra in September 2013. She is also on the chamber music faculty at Peabody Conservatory and on the flute faculty at the International School of Music in Bethesda, Maryland.