Elena Papandreou was born in Athens on 7th March 1966. She studied the guitar with Evangelos Boudounis at the National Conservatory and graduated in 1985 with honours. She gave her first concert at the age of 15. She continued her studies with Gordon Crosskey at the Royal Northern College of Music, England, on a British Council scholarship, obtaining the Diploma in Advanced Studies in Musical Performance (1986). She also had lessons with Oscar Ghiglia, Alirio Diaz, Julian Bream, Leo Brouwer and Ruggero Chiesa.

She has won the First Prize in three International Competitions, "Maria Callas" (Greece), "Gargnano" (Italy), "Alessandria" (Italy) and the Second Prize in the "Guitar Foundation of America" Competition. In the latter she was also awarded the "NAXOS" Prize, which gave her the opportunity to record two personal CDs with this company while she had previously released five other records. Since 2001 she collaborates with the Swedish BIS where she already released two CDs (works by N. Koshkin and R. Dyens). In 1992 she was honoured by the Academy of Athens with the "Spyros Motsenigos" Prize - a most important prize that is awarded to one outstanding performer every two years.

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