10/23/2026
PIANIST OF THE DAY! 🎹
Today’s Pianist of the Day is Dr. Elena Kholodova! She gave an incredible performance of Rachmaninoff’s Etude-Tableaux Op. 39 No. 5!
This evening at The Art Place in Marietta, Georgia, she will be performing more pieces by Rachmaninoff along with Alvard Mayilyan and Dina Alekseyev at 7PM!
Dr. Elena Kholodova is a Russian-American pianist, educator, recitalist, and internationally experienced opera coach. She maintains a private piano studio in Marietta, Georgia, and teaches applied piano at Morehouse College. She is also an active performer and works with The Atlanta Opera as an opera coach and rehearsal pianist.
Dr. Kholodova is a winner of the Vladimir Krainev International Piano Competition, a semifinalist in the Prokofiev International Piano Competition, and a recipient of the Best Accompanist title at the International Rimsky-Korsakov Vocal Competition.
Born in Voronezh, Russia, Elena began her professional piano training at an unusually young age. Her first teacher, Natalya Parinova, accepted her as a student when she was six. At age nine, she was selected to enter the intensive music program at the Voronezh College of Music, one of the specialized music schools of the former Soviet Union.
She subsequently studied with Professor Nina Philatova, a piano professor at the State Voronezh Institute of Arts and a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Victor Merzhanov. Elena studied with Professor Philatova for fourteen years, continuing through her doctoral studies.
Her teaching philosophy has been deeply influenced by the Russian piano tradition, particularly the pedagogical philosophy associated with Moscow Conservatory professor Heinrich Neuhaus: developing a complete musician rather than simply training a technically accomplished piano player.
Elena believes that talent is important—but talent means very little without dedicated work. As teachers, we have the responsibility to discover the individual key that unlocks each student’s potential.
“Every student is different. Our job is to find the key that opens the door.”
