Lina Baranov is a piano instructor in Biola's Conservatory and a frequent performer at the department's Music at Noon concert series. She began her piano studies at the age of six at Moscow’s special school for exceptionally gifted children and graduated from the famed Gnessin Music Institute in Moscow, where she studied with the eminent Russian teacher Jacob Milstein. After graduation, she joined the faculty of Moscow’s internationally acclaimed Tchaikovsky Conservatory. She emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1978. She and her husband, L. A. Philharmonic Assistant Concertmaster Mark Baranov, perform together frequently in the Los Angeles area, and as members of Trio West. In 1992, Mrs. Baranov was in residence at the Festival Bahnhof Rolandseck in Bonn with Trio West and a small group of Philharmonic musicians. She has been and is currently a soloist with various local orchestras.