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Elina Vasiltchikova

Born in Baku, Azerbajan (former USSR), Elina Vasiltchikova has been living and performing in the US since 1990. For the past 15 years, along with her singing career, Elina worked as an educator. She has brought up a generation of talented vocalists while teaching "Voice Technique Class" at the Jazz Faculty of The New School University in New York.

In The US Elina worked and performed with such musicians as Joe Locke, Harvie S, Benny Golson, Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Marvin "Smitty" Smith, Reggie Workman, Cliff Korman, Valtinho Anastasio, Mike Campenni and Chembo Corniel, Cafe, Willie Martinez, Otmaro Ruiz and Aaron Serfaty. She performed with a great pianist and composer Misha Tsiganov, with wonderfull musicians, as Andrei Ryabov, Arkadiy Figlin, Eugene Maslov, Igor and Oleg Butman, Dmitri Kolesnik and Alex"Sasha" Sipiagin, Rouslan Khaine and others.

Her new album is titled "I Never Felt This Way Before". The name of this album was anything but accidental: Elina was never before so ready to put her heart, talent, feelings, and all of her musical and life experiences into a single project. This collection of songs is pretty unique. The project includes rarely performed jazz standards, as well as Elina's original score. The first song, "Adios My Love" and the very last one, "I Never Felt This Way Before", were both written by the singer. In the last song, Elina also plays the piano.

The extent of Elina's performances is very broad: she collaborated with Jazz Big Band of Oleg Lundstrem, a brilliant pianist Leonid Chizhik, the Moscow State Orchestra of Radio & Television, St. Petersburg Orchestra of Radio & Television, "Friderikhstate Palace" (Germany), and played at venues in Italy, Germany, USA, Russia, Poland, Mongolia, and other concert halls all over the world.

At the Music School, she trained in classical piano. Later on, she continued her education at Music College of "Asaph Zeinallu". Her passion for classical music manifested itself in performing pieces by Rachmaninov, Bach, Vivaldi, Brahms, Chopin, Beethoven, Griegg and other greats. This infatuation also made it a difficult feat when it came to choosing between continuing to play piano or singing. Ultimately, Elina realized that her real passion was voice.

Eventually, Elina graduated from School of St. Petersburg Music Hall. At the age of twenty, she became a principle vocalist, actress, and a dancer of the above named Theatre. There she adapted the image of jack-of-all-trades. It was a wonderful experience for the young artist to perform on this world-famous stage, but it was not enough for Elina, whose passionate love for jazz eventually lead her to Moscow and later, to New York.

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Elina Vasiltchikova Vocalist

“When you think of Elina, think of quality and mastery, think of sophistication, of deep-felt emotion, of being transported on a lovely and gentle carpet of sound and poetry.”

Cliff Korman, Pianist / composer / educator / researcher of jazz and Brazilian music

"Elina Vasiltchikova's new release "I NEVER FELT THIS WAY BEFORE" is simply amazing.

Her voice could be sometimes very sweet and in other times just so strong and powerfull. The music take us to a great experience full of emotions through 13 very well selected tracks.

The instrumentalist are just out of competition!!!"

Primary Instrument

Vocals

Credentials/Background

“My goal as a teacher is to create a healthy vocal instrument that allows the performer to sing any style of music and produce extraordinary and beautiful tones, discovering the best possible sound and uniqueness of their voice.” Elina

Elina has been teaching voice lessons for over 15 years. She has brought up a generation of talented vocalists while teaching a "Voice Technique Class" at the Jazz Faculty of The New School University in addition to conducting private lessons. Her teaching combines the rich tradition of the famous Italian vocal school Bel Canto with advanced Russian and USA pedagogy and practice techniques