Yelena Eckemoff is a Russian-born pianist, composer, poet, and visual artist. Her compositions blend

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

with

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, and feature exploration and improvisation.

Music career

Eckemoff was born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, Russia, in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. Her mother was a professional pianist and teacher. When Eckemoff was four, she started to play piano by ear and took lessons from her mother. At seven, she attended

Gnessin State Musical College The Gnessin State Musical College (russian: link=no, Государственный музыкальный колледж имени Гнесиных) and Gnesins Russian Academy of Music (russian: Российская академия музык� ...

, a school for gifted children. She studied

classical piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Moscow State Conservatory The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (russian: Московская государственная консерватория им. П. И. Чайковского, link=no) is a musical educational inst ...

. After graduating, she taught piano in Moscow. She gave solo concerts, took

classes, composed music for several instruments, and played in a

jazz-rock Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...

band. In 1991, she moved to the U.S. She has recorded in several genres: classical, vocal, folk, Christian, and jazz. Although jazz is typically associated with improvisation, Eckemoff often writes scores for her songs. Her music has been described as classical

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

in the context of improvisational jazz.

Discography

* ''Cold Sun'' (L&H, 2010) * ''Grass Catching the Wind'' (L&H, 2010) * ''Flying Steps'' (L&H, 2010) * ''Forget-Me-Not'' (L&H, 2011) * ''Glass Song'' (L&H, 2013) * ''A Touch of Radiance'' (L&H, 2014) * ''Lions'' (L&H, 2014) * ''Everblue'' (L&H, 2015) * ''Leaving Everything Behind'' (L&H, 2016) * ''Blooming Tall Phlox'' (L&H, 2017) * ''In the Shadow of a Cloud'' (L&H, 2017) * ''Desert'' (L&H, 2018) * ''Better Than Gold and Silver'' (L&H, 2018) * ''Colors'' (L&H, 2019) * ''Nocturnal Animals'' (L&H, 2020) * ''Adventures of the Wildflower'' (L&H, 2021) * ''I Am a Stranger in This World'' (L&H, 2022) * ''Lonely Man and His Fish'' (L&H, 2023)

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eckemoff, Yelena Living people Soviet classical pianists Russian classical pianists Russian women pianists 20th-century classical pianists American classical pianists American women classical pianists American jazz pianists Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American women pianists 21st-century classical pianists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists