Galina Grigorjeva (b. 1962) was born in the Crimea, studied at Odessa Conservatory, graduated in 1991 from Juri Falik’s class at the St Petersburg Conservatory, and completed her Master’s degree in 1998 at the Estonian Music Academy under the supervision of Lepo Sumera. She is currently a truly original composer in Estonia. The state of her musical focus is something akin to Arvo Pärt tintinnabuli works, yet musical colour is given to the works by her Slavic cultural heritage, where Grigorjeva feels belonging. The texts of her works are mostly chosen from Russian sources: Russian folk songs and Russian poets, and increasingly, she has turned to texts from the Russian Orthodox Church, and has studied earlier Russian Orthodox Church music and the spiritual verse forms. These studies have deeply affected her –the human voice, melody, and aspects of early music are discernable in her instrumental works.