Elena Caldine was born in Crimea, Ukraine and started to study piano at age 5 with her mother, Larisa Ulyanova. Elena went to Moscow at age 15 to enter Gnessinski College of Music. After finishing the college she enrolled in Gnessin Music Academy in Moscow.  She was immediately awarded the prestigious Momantov Scholarship.  This provided her money for four-years of tuition and a concert in Vienna, Austria where she played the Mozart triple concerto with orchestra under the baton of conductor Martin Turnovski. She started at Moscow conservatory in 1996 and the following year was a prizewinner in the 2^nd Rachmaninov International Piano Competition.  At the conservatory she studied with the famous Russian pianist, Victor Merzhanov, and received the Master of Music degree in 1998. Elena continued post-graduate study with Professor Merzhanov until 2003.

She has performed solo and in orchestra concerts in Russia, Ukraine, China, Korea, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and United Kingdom. Her performances with orchestras include the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra with Alexander Vedernikov, and the Crimea State Symphony Orchestra in Yalta.  In April 2004, she recorded an all-Liszt CD in Moscow and shortly after immigrated to United States. In 2005, she performed in New York City, Washington, London, and Florida.  Also in 2005, she worked with Howard Shelley, who has recorded all of Rachmaninov’s piano works, to prepare for her latest recording of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dmitry Yablonksy and released by Bel Air Music on this CD.  Elena is presently studying with the great Russian pianist, Oxana Yablonskaya.

You cannot deny the panache of the Russian piano player Elena Ulyanova-Caldine…. she intensifies showpieces such as Liszt’s Mefisto Walz and the Tarantella with all the restlessness of a wild breathing and rumbling volcano, which rarely slows down. From this point of view, she does full justice to the physical excitement that the music of Liszt is capable of….  Elger Niels Piano Wereld Aug/Sept 2005