Yelena Eckemoff

Yelena Eckemoff is an internationally renowned Russian-American pianist, composer, poet, and visual artist who organically blends classical elements with jazz improvisation in evocative and uniquely distinctive works that strike a delicate balance between through-composed frameworks and open-ended exploration and improvisation. In 90th Yelena emigrated to the United States. She recorded her first jazz album, COLD SUN, in 2009, accompanied by drummer Peter Erskine and Danish bassist Mads Vinding. This proved to be a major turning point in her jazz career. Chosen as one of the finest recordings of the year, reviews of the recording compared it favorably with the gold standard of ECM's piano trios. From that point on, Eckemoff churned out compelling and focused contemporary jazz albums at an astounding pace; she has managed to build, over just 15 years, a mammoth 20 critically acclaimed releases with the top jazzmen of USA and Europe. Music critics say that Yelena Eckemoff is one of the most interesting composers currently, with a classical background, her universe is jazz, but always with a deep intellectual reasoning, who, with her style and her own musical language, manages to renew herself with each album. Visit www.yelenamusic.com for the collection of reviews for all her albums, video and image galleries, bio, and more.