Ilona Yansons graduated from the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire in 1990. In 1991 she continued her studies at the Conservatoire as a trainee assistant in chamber music. Ilona Yansons has been an opera concert mistress at the Mariinsky Theatre since 1999, and has worked on productions of Lucia di Lammermoor, La bohème, Prince Igor, The Queen of Spades, Un ballo in maschera, Macbeth, La traviata, Otello, Don Carlo, La forza del destino, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, I pagliacci, Il tabarro, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Lohengrin and Das Rheingold. Ilona Yansons has taken part in festivals of chamber music in Russia and abroad several times.