Elena Yakovleva has served as the principal piccoloist with the United States Navy Band since 2015. She also holds the piccolo/3rd flute chair position with the Delaware Symphony since 2008 and the Maryland Symphony Orchestras since 2010.

Yakovleva has performed with the Baltimore, Cleveland, Annapolis Symphony Orchestras, National Orchestra Institute, Kent-Blossom and Sun Festival in Singapore. She is also on the flute faculty at the International School of Music in Bethesda. 

Yakovleva graduated from the Rachmaninoff Music College with honors in Kaliningrad, Russia. She continued her studies at the Hochschule für Music Detmold and at the Folkwanghochschule Essen, Germany, studying under professor Wegner and professor Ott, and later, under renown Jeanne Baxtresser as a performance residence program student at the Carnegie Mellon University on full scholarship.

Yakovleva has received her Master of Music, GPD in flute and graduate performance diploma in chamber music with Marina Piccinini at Peabody Conservatory on full scholarship. 

A scholarship recipient from the Russian Ministry of Culture, she was selected for the artist roster of Yehudi Menuhin’s  Foundation “Live Music Now.” She was a prizewinner in the New York Flute Club Competition in 2006 and Baltimore Music Club Competition in 2011.