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Born in Karaganda, within a span of four years, the Bekova sisters grew up together in this industrial and mining town in central Kazakhstan which was notorious as a Soviet place of interval exile. In fact it was a political exile, an accomplished musician and teacher, Roman Mazanov, who first recognised the potential of the three little girls in a family of no previous history of music. He selected the instruments for them: violin for Elvira, the eldest, piano for Eleonora and cello for Alfia, the youngest. When the then Soviet Minister of Culture heard the sisters at a gala in Almaty, the family was immediately moved to Moscow. There, they studied in the Central Music School for Children affiliated to the world famous Tchaikovsky Conservatoire where they completed their musical education, graduating with honours: Elvira under Igor Bezrodny, Eleonora under Yakov Zak and Alfia under Mstislav Rostropovich.

During these years they won various international prizes: Elvira was among the laureates of the Paganini Violin Competition in Genoa, Alfia an outright winner of the Cassals Competition in Budapest and together they were the winners of the Belgrade Piano Trio Competition.

Despite their youth, the Sisters were soon recognised as a leading chamber ensemble in the USSR and regularly appeared on television and radio, also touring extensively within their own country and recording for Melodiya.

Many artists in the former USSR suffered from the fetters of the Soviet regime and the increasing restrictions on life and artistic freedom for all the sisters including a bar on the Trio appearing in the West prompted Alfia to defect to Britain in November 1981. Instantly, the name of the Trio and the two remaining artists disappeared from the public eye. With the advent of perestroika it eventually became possible for the family to reunite and Eleonora and Elvira joined their sister in London by the end of 1989. By Christmas that year, they had already recorded their first CD and performed at London's South Bank Centre (Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Brahms). The event was met with great enthusiasm by the critics.

Since then, the Bekova Sisters have performed in a wide variety of British festivals as well as at the South Bank Centre, St John's Smith Square, the Wigmore Hall and other venues in London on many occasions. Tours in Belgium and France immediately followed their London debut. The Sisters have premiered many chamber works, particularly by British composers. Michael Finnissy's In Stiller Nacht was written especially for them and was premiered by the Sisters at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. David Heath composed a piano trio for them entitled Gorbachev as part of the Cheltenham Festival in 1992 and its inaugural performance was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. The Trio appears regularly on television and radio.

During 1994, the Bekova Sisters played at the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna and gave a cycle of 10 recitals in the Conway Hall, London entitled Chamber Music Masterpieces which comprised a complete rendition of the Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert piano trios and string sonatas. The following year, they returned to the Conway Hall for a cycle of 12 concerns entitled From Haydn to Schnittke , embracing classical, romantic and contemporary works.

1995 was an especially notable year for the Bekova Sisters as it marked their return to Kazakhstan where they received a tumultuous and emotional welcome and President Nazarbaev gave a dinner to mark the occasion. A concert followed during the Moscow Autumn Festival where they premiered a triple concerto written for them by the Russian composer, Sergei Zhukov. The performance at the Tchaikovsky Hall received a rapturous standing ovation and this together with another orchestral work dedicated to the Sisters has been recorded on CD by Chandos.

The trio also performed at the Lockenhaus Festival and appeared on Dutch radio and television at the time of a highly successful debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in December 1995. The Sisters fulfilled engagements in Canada, the Lincoln Centre in New York, Austria, Italy and at the Al Bustan International Festival of the Performing Arts in the Lebanon. There followed performances in London, Beethoven's Triple Concerto, St Petersburg with the London Philharmonic and the Leningrad Philharmonic orchestras. They also played in Ankara and Yugoslavia as well as making a highly successful return visit to Kazakhstan where they performed at the inauguration of the new capital city Astana. In the Autumn of 1998, they played at the Brussels PACT Festival and performed a series of fully subscribed concerts at the Melbourne Festival.

Subsequently the trio was invited to perform several concerts at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Ireland in 2000. This was preceeded by premier performances of the contemporary compositions by Zhukov for Piano Trio and Orchestra, the only such pieces since Beethoven's great master work which the Sisters have also performed. In 2001 and 2002 the Trio performed at the St. Ceciliatide Festival in London. Their performance of the Shostakovich No. 2 Piano Trio was acclaimed. They have also performed at the Al Bhustan Festival of the Performing Arts in the Lebanon, in Trieste, France and Germany, all favourably acknowledged. Engagements in 2003 have included performances in Lithuania and Malta.