Yaroslava Ihnatenko was born in 1998 in Sumy, Ukraine. She began her classical guitar studies with twelve years old at the Central musical school of Sumy. Four years later she went to the Sumy College of Music and Arts D.Bortniansky, where she was studying for three years and was supported with a national scholarship. For the fourth and last year of studying Yaroslava moved to the capital of Ukraine to continue her guitar studies in Kyiv Institute of Music R.Glier under the tutelage of E. Drozdova. There she graduated with honours and highest grades in 2018 and started to prepare herself to study in Germany. 

In summer 2019 Yaroslava began her studies at Robert Schumann Hochschule fuer Musik in Duesseldorf with Prof. Alexander-Sergei Ramirez, where she is currently studying. In 2020 she won the Deutschland Stipendium which helps to support her studies.

During her studies in Kiev she had the opportunity to play in some renowned concerts halls in Ukraine, like the Sumy Philarmonie, Sumy Palace of culture, Kyiv center of Arts and many more. 

She won prizes in various national Ukrainian guitar competitions such as “Provesin”, “Kharkivski Zori”, “Kyivska vesna” etc. In 2015 she went to Budapest with the Ukrainian guitar orchestra, where it merged with the Hungarian guitar orchestra for a concert at the Puskás Ferenc Arena.

Additionally Yaroslava participated in Master classes held by great guitarists and professors such as Joaquin Clerch, Joaquim Santos Simões, Aniello Desiderio, Eduardo Inestal and Vladimir Dozenko.

In her free time she enjoys reading, making transcriptions for the guitar and learning foreign languages.