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Instruction + Performance +

Recording + Collaboration

A versatile and inquisitive musician, Elina Christova is a classical pianist at home in all genres, from the Baroque to the contemporary. Gaining praise from critics for her ‘deeply considered interpretations,’ ‘facile pianism,’ and ‘sure musical instincts,’ her affinity for lesser played music has led to innovative programming featuring works by composers of the moment: Glass, Kapustin, O’Riley, Hiltzik, Ayres, as well as seldom heard piano and chamber works from her native Bulgaria.

In June 2021 Elina performed the US premiere of Hyung-ki Joo’s evocative piano piece Chandeliers as part of Make Music Day at the Oculus in New York City. That same year she collaborated with jazz pianist David Childs in two concerts featuring a mix of classical, pop and jazz styles, where she performed solo piano covers of Radiohead songs transcribed by pianist and composer Christopher O’Riley, a selection of Glass etudes and miniatures by Pancho Vladigerov, and together with David, a duet based on Bach’s organ Toccata and Fugue by Paul Ayres.

An avid chamber musician, in 2024 Elina collaborated with fellow Connecticut musicians Shan Jiang, Suzanne Corey-Sahlin and Gunnar Sahlin in a duo, trio and quartet concert featuring Brahms’ Piano Quartet in C minor and Gwyneth Walker’s Letters to the World, a work in five movements inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

Other highlights of her chamber collaborations include a performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time; the cello sonatas by Chopin and Rachmaninoff with Gjorgj Kroqi; the violin sonata by the late Bulgarian jazz pianist Milcho Leviev with Stanichka Dimitrova at Weill Recital Hall; a concert of solo piano and violin pieces written and performed with Albert Markov at the Summit Music Festival and Institute at Manhattanville College; and a recording of the complete Beethoven violin sonatas with Andrew Smith as part of the Elan Duo. The CD set, released in December 2015, was received warmly by the critics, the duo’s partnership described in Fanfare Magazine as ‘well matched musically,’ and rivaling ‘any number of famous performers in this repertoire.’

Elina has appeared as a solo performer in all-Scriabin recitals at the World Piano Teachers Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia in 2018 and at the Fifth International Piano Festival in Havana, Cuba the year prior, and was included in the lineup of the prestigious Sofia Music Weeks festival of 2014 held annually in the Bulgarian capital.

A sought-after adjudicator, Elina has been on the panels of the Marianne Liberatore and Audrey Thayer competitions, the Young Musicians Festival and New London Festival in Connecticut, the Elite International Piano Competition, the Young Pianists Competition and the Rosewood Fanning Piano Competition New York, where she also participated in the Juror's Recital.

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria but raised in Vienna, Elina began her musical education there at age nine. She entered the Preparatory Division at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in the classes of Prof. Hans Graf and Prof. Imola Fonyad at eleven and as a teenager continued her education in Sofia at the Lyubomir Pipkov National Music School. She later graduated from both the Bachelor and Master's Programs at the Pancho Vladigerov National Music Academy under the guidance of Prof. Jenny Zaharieva.

Relocating to New York in 1996 as a Fulbright Scholar, Elina has been living, working, and performing in the United States ever since. She holds a Master’s and a Doctoral Degree from Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Solomon Mikowsky.

Elina currently resides in Norwalk, CT where she teaches privately from her studio and maintains a busy career as a solo performer, recording artist and pedagogue. She is expanding her practice of music to electronic composition, production, and live performance.

In her spare time Elina is working on the first draft of a non-fiction book dedicated to helping parents navigate the first few, and most crucial years of piano lessons.