She was born in Leningrad intae the faimily o fisicists Oleg Firsov an Viktoria Lichko. She studiet muisic in Moscow wi Alexander Pirumov, Yuri Kholopov, Edison Denisov an Philip Herschkowitz. In 1979 she wis blackleetit as ane o the "Khrennikov's Seven" at the Saxt Congress o the Union o Soviet Composers for unappruivit pairticipation in some festivals o Soviet muisic in the Wast. She is marriet tae the composer Dmitri Smirnov an they currently live in the United Kingdom. Their childer are Philip Firsov (an airtist an sculptor), an Alissa Firsova (a composer, pianist an conductor).
She composed mair nor a hunder compositions in mony different genres includin chamber opera The Nightingale and the Rose efter Oscar Wilde an Christina Rossetti (premiered at the 1994 Almeida Opera Festival, Lunnon), an orchestra wirk Augury, (premiered at the 1992 BBC Proms) that includes a choral settin o William Blake’s famous lines ‘To see the world in a grain of sand...’ and Requiem tae Anna Akhmatova's poem for soprano, chorus an orchestra (premiered at the Berlin Konzerthouse in September 2003).
Her favorite genre is a chamber cantata for solo voice an ensemble (or orchestra). Some o them are written tae the poems bi Alexander Pushkin, Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak an Oleg Prokofiev. Housomeivver, the maist o them are settin the poems bi her favorite poet Osip Mandelstam that include Earthly Life, Tristia, The Stone, Forest Walks, Before the Thunderstorm, Stygian Song, Secret Way, Seashell, Whirlpool, Silentium, Winter Songs, an Petrarch's Sonnets (in Roushie translation bi Osip Mandelstam).
She receivit commissions frae mony muisic festivals, orchestras an ensembles includin the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Brodsky Quartet, Manchester Wind Orchestra, Schubert Ensemble, Freden Festival, BBC Proms an Expo 2000 (Hanover). Her muisic is available through publishers Boosey & Hawkes, Lunnon; Hans Sikorski, Hamburg; G. Schirmer, New York.
The River of Time for chorus an chamber orchestra in memory o Edison Denisov (Gavrila Derzhavin, 1997)
La malinconia (String Quartet No. 10, 1998)
Captivity for wind orchestra (1998)
Leaving for string orchestra (1998)
The Scent of Absence for bass, flute an harp (Oleg Prokofiev, 1998)
Das erste ist vergangen (Christushymnus 2000) (The Former Things are Passed Away) for soprano, bass, mixed choir, an chamber orchestra (Franz Kafka, Bible, etc., 1999)
Requiem for soprano, chorus an orchestra (Anna Akhmatova, 2001)
Winter Songs for soprano an cello (Mandelstam, 2003)
La Malinconia, String Quartet No.10 Op.84 in: Brodsky Quartet: Beethoven Op.18 and six more: Alvarez, Beamish, Firsova, Jegede, Smirnov, Tanaka, Vanguard Classics 99212
Chamber Concerto No.1 for Flute and Strings Op.19 in: Works by modern composers of Moscow: Smirnov, Bobilev, Firsova, Pavlenko, Artiomov, Mobile Fidelity MFCD 906
Cassandra for symphony orchestra Op.60 (1992) thegither with Sofia Gubaidulina: Pro et contra BIS CD-668 STEREO
The Mandelstam Cantatas (Forest Walks, Earthly Life, Before the Thunderstorm) Studio for New Music Moscow, Igor Dronov, conductor; Ekaterina Kichigina, soprano Megadisc MDC 7816 see at Megadisc siteArchived 2005-09-20 at the Wayback Machine
Elena Firsova: On Music; in Sovjetische Music in Licht der Perestroika, pp. 337–8, Laaber-Verlag, Germany, (German translation by Hannelore Gerlach and Jürgen Köchel) 1990
Yuri Kholopov: Russians in England: Dmitri Smirnov, Elena Firsova. Article, in: Music From the Former USSR. Issue 2. Moscow: Composer, 1996, pp. 255–303; Ex oriente...: Ten Composers from the Former USSR. Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 2002, pp. 207–266 ISBN 3-928864-84-X
Firsova, Yelena Olegovna by Stephen Johnson, in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
