A performer (piano), teacher and music public figure.
She was born in Moscow into a musical family. She studied at the Central Special Music School and the Gnesin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute (now the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music), where her teachers included the eminent pedagogues and performers V. V. Listova, G. G. Neigauz, A. D. Gotlib, B. M. Berlin, E. M. Slavinskaya and L. Ye. Brumberg. In her fourth year as a student she began working as an accompanist in the violin and viola departments of the Gnesin Music College and the Gnesin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute.
After graduating with honours in 1964 she was invited to teach in the Department of Chamber Ensemble of the Gnesin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute (now the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music).
Over the years Professor Irina Mikhailovna Anastaseva has trained more than three hundred young specialists, many of whom teach at leading higher and secondary music‑education institutions, work as concert performers and lead ensemble groups in Russia and abroad. Among her pupils are gifted musicians who hold honorary artistic titles and are laureates of international competitions.
From 1985 to 2000 Irina Mikhailovna Anastaseva served as Vice‑Rector for Academic Affairs at the Gnesin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute (now the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music).
For more than thirty years she was actively engaged in performing, and in 1984 she was awarded the honorary title «Honoured Artist of the RSFSR».
Joint concert performances with the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich played an important role in her development as a chamber musician.
In Russia and abroad Irina Mikhailovna Anastaseva has toured with prominent instrumentalists including F. Luzanov, V. Tonkha, K. Georgian, V. Saradjyan, M. Maisky, M. Monighetti, T. Remennikova, A. Kiselev and many others.
With her participation the Melodiya label has released LPs and CDs, and more than thirty works have been recorded for the archives of Gosteleradio. The Muzyka publishing house has issued, under her editorship, teaching aids with a total volume of over fifty printer’s sheets, including nine volumes of the «Anthology of Piano Ensembles». In 2009 the publishing house Klassika XXI vek included one of her arrangements of works by Franz Schubert for piano four‑hands in its «Anthology of Piano Ensemble».
Irina Mikhailovna Anastaseva is the author of the programme «Chamber Ensemble» for higher music‑education institutions in the speciality «Instrumental Performance» (Tambov, 2006).
For many years she has taken part in music gatherings, conferences and seminars and has given masterclasses in Russia and abroad (in the USA, the United Kingdom, Finland, Hungary, Poland, the Baltic States and elsewhere). She has repeatedly served on the juries of international, national and regional chamber‑ensemble competitions, including:
- the Sergei Taneyev International Chamber‑Ensemble Competition in Kaluga;
- the Gnesin International Youth Chamber‑Ensemble Competition in Novomoskovsk;
- regional competitions in Belgorod, Tambov and Volgograd.
In 2004 Irina Mikhailovna Anastaseva was named a laureate of the prize of the public foundation «Russian Performing Art».
Since 2000 she has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the charitable foundation for the support of creative initiatives «Lir», taking an active part in organising competitions and festivals, summer courses and concerts at venues in Moscow and other Russian cities.
