Elena Postumi grew up in Rome, Italy, and began playing piano at the age of 5. She studied piano, composition and interpretation of art song at Conservatorio di S. Cecilia in Rome, and continued her training at Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy" in Leipzig, earning her MA in chamber music and her Doctorate in interpretation of art song and conducting. Taking a particular interest in interdisciplinary studies, she pursues knowledge in architecture, European literature, and music phenomenology, deepening the latter since 2014 with pianist Elizabeth Sombart. 

As an avid collaborative pianist, Elena performs regularly with both chamber musicIans and singers, appearing in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, USA, Iceland, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Spain. In 2018 she was awarded the prize for Best Accompanist in the Lortzing Singing Competition in Leipzig. The joy of working with voices drove her to opera houses: first at the National Opera of Iceland as well as the Nasjonale Opera in Bergen, Norway, she was engaged as a répétiteur, pianist and musical assistant. From 2020 to 2023 Elena worked in the same position at the Staatstheater Darmstadt, Germany, where she also debuted as a conductor and led several concerts and productions, ranging from contemporary opera to musical theatre. Her theater pièce "Becoming Luise Büchner" for mezzo-soprano, piano, contrabass and electronics, commissioned by the theater for the season 2022/23, witnessed eight sold-out performances and has been recently revived for the festival Summer Up 8. 

Elena's music has been defined "a contemporary tonal language that oscillates between the popular and the avant-garde" (Doris Kösterke, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), embedding elements of pop and jazz music as well as electronics in an eclectic language which appeals to a broad audience. Passionate connaisseur of the human voice and art song tradition, Elena has composed various vocal works - including several songs for voices and piano or ensemble. Her concertos for violin and orchestra (2019) and flute and chamber orchestra, "Corifeo delle correnti" (2021) were premiered in Iceland and positively acclaimed.

Elena was a recipient of DAAD-scholarship of the interdisciplinary research center from the University of Bielefeld in 2019, STIBET-doctorate scholarship in 2019-2020 and holds a scholarship of Live Music Now e. V. Leipzig Fördergesellschaft.

She is currently a lecturer in Lied (art song interpretation) and coach for Italian opera repertoire at the Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt, where she also collaborates with the Composition department.