Elena Firsova was born in Leningrad on 21 March 1950 into a family of scientists. The father Oleg Borisovich Firsov was a distinguished atomic physicist. The family moved to Moscow in 1956. She graduated from the Moscow Conservatory 1975 where she studied with 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. 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 Johns 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. She has written works in many different genres including operas, oratory, cantatas, orchestral works, concertos, chamber ensembles, solo works and so on. Recent commissions are from Brodsky Quartet, Manchester Wind Orchestra, Schubert Ensemble, Freden Festival and EXPO 2000 (Hanover) and Bad Kissingen Festival (2003). The premiere of her major work Requem to Akhmatova poem took place at the Berlin Konzerthouse, on 6th of September 2003. Her music is available through Publishers Boosey & Hawkes, London, Hans Sikorski, Hamburg and G.Schirmer, New York and Meladdina Press, St Albans.