Elena Fabianovna Gnesina

Elena Fabianovna Gnesina (31 May 1874 – 4 June 1967) was a Russian and Soviet pianist, music teacher and educational administrator. Born in Rostov-on-Don into a musical family, she entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1885, where her teachers included E. L. Langer, Vasily Safonov and Ferruccio Busoni; she graduated in 1893. Together with her sisters Evgenia and Maria, she founded a private music school in Moscow in February 1895, with the first pupil admitted on 15 February. She taught piano and directed the Gnesin educational institutions for 72 years. In 1944 she became the founding director and artistic director of the Gnesin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute, serving until her death. She was designated an Honored Arts Worker of the RSFSR in 1935 and became a professor in 1943. Her work profoundly shaped music education in Russia. She died in Moscow and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery. Her birth date follows the official Gnesin institutional and memorial-museum account; some historical sources give differing birth dates or years.