Nina Kotova studied at the Moscow Conservatory and the Musikhochschule in Cologne, Germany. Kotova notably gave her first performance as a soloist with an orchestra at age 11. She made her Western debut in Prague with the Prague Radio Orchestra in 1986 after winning the Prague International Competition. She continued with her international debuts at Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, and Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Kotova has since then continued her career as a soloist with symphony orchestras across the globe including the Czech Philharmonic, the Royal Opera House orchestra, the BBC Orchestra, the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg. On this album, she plays on the Stradivarius cello used by Jacqueline du Pre in the early 1960s. Newsweek has called her ""a fantastically gifted cellist,"" and TIME ""a musician of high seriousness and real talent.