Elena L. Safonova

Teacher, methodologist, researcher.

In 1985 she graduated from the Gnesin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute (now the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music) in violin.

From 1984 to 1993 she taught violin at the S. S. Prokofiev Moscow Regional Music College.

Since 1994 she has worked at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (as Senior Research Fellow in the Research Laboratory, and since 2006 as Associate Professor in the Department of Theory and History of Performing Arts).

From 2000 to 2003 she lectured on the history of string performance at the Academic Music College at the Moscow Conservatory.

Since 2001 she has taught in the Violin and Viola Department of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, giving courses on the history of performing art and supervising diploma papers and master’s theses. She is the author of numerous works on violin performance and pedagogy, lectures for the course «History of Violin and Viola Art» and various curricula, with a total of 170 books and articles published.

Selected publications:

• «Conversations on Pedagogy and Performance (Towards a Synthesis of the Creative Experience of Professors of the Moscow Conservatory)», vol. 3, editor-compiler and introductory article by E. L. Safonova, Moscow, 1996;
• «Conversations on Pedagogy and Performance (Towards a Synthesis of the Creative Experience of Professors of the Orchestral Faculty of the Moscow Conservatory)», vol. 4, editor-compiler and introductory article by E. L. Safonova, Moscow, 1999;
• E. L. Safonova, «The Violin School of the Moscow Conservatory: Creative Traditions», Moscow, 2002;
• E. L. Safonova, «The Leading Professors of the Moscow Violin School», teaching manual, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, 2005;
• E. L. Safonova, 137 articles in the Biographical Encyclopaedic Dictionary «The Moscow Conservatory: From its Origins to the Present Day», Moscow, 2007;
• «A Word about David Oistrakh», editor-compiler and introductory article by E. L. Safonova, Moscow, 2009;
• E. L. Safonova, «The Violin School of the Moscow Conservatory from its Origins to the 1980s», Moscow, 2012;
• «Galina Barinova. Music and Word: Articles, Translations, Memoirs» (for the 150th anniversary of the Moscow Conservatory), editor-compiler and introductory article by E. L. Safonova, Moscow, 2012.