Born in Moscow and living in Paris, Elena Gantchikova is a high profile Franco-Russian musician. 
She is an accomplished composer, piano performer, musicologist and educator. 
She divides her time between music creation, piano performance, education, music and art journalism.
Music critic of opera, ballet and arts for major publications such as Belcanto and OperaNews, Elena is the founder and director of the International Institute for Musical Aesthetics InterIMEC and author of a vast catalogue of instrumental, orchestral, electroacoustic and mixed works including the symphonic poems Blizzard (after M. Tsvetayeva) and Nymbus, opera Seven Prophesies of Ivan Bunin, oratory Light, composition The Sound Space of Andrei Voznesensky, ballet Judah Iscariot, operas , ballets, chamber music. She is member of SACEM (Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de musique)
Elena received musical education in both Moscow and Paris. She graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with specializations in musical theory and composition (under Prof. Albert Lehmann), piano performance (under Prof. Valery Kastelski) as well as conducting (Prof. Igor Schtegmann). 
She was conducting intern with Ilya Musin at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg.
In Paris she studied with composer Gérard Grisey at the CNSMDP (Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris) and also studied new technologies for composers at IRCAM (Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustic / Music).
She got a Master degree in musicology from the Sorbonne (under Prof. Manfred Kelkel) and DEA (diplôme d’études approfondies), followed by doctoral research in musicology of the twentieth century at IRCAM, CNRS ( French National Centre for Scientific Research) and EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales). Her advisor was Hugues Dufourt.
Later Elena did research at Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel (Switzerland), as well as archives of the University of Basel. Worked as composer-in-residence at IMEB (Institut international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges), at the Academy of Arts in Berlin and at the Technical University of Berlin.

Gantchikova Elena