Oxana Yablonskaya was born in Moscow. As an adolescent she attended The Moscow Central School for the Gifted under Anaida Sumbatyan until the age of 16. She later studied at the Conservatory of Moscow with Aleksandre Goldenweiser. At 22, she began a professional relationship with Tatiana Nikolayeva in the Doctorate Program, later acting as her assistant at the Moscow Conservatory. Following her graduation, she was introduced to the Western World at the Jacques Long-Thibaud Competition in 1963, the Rio de Janeiro Competition in 1965, and the Vienna Beethoven Competition in 1969.

She had earned the prestigious title of Soloist of the Moscow Philharmonic which put her in the company of elite artists such as Gilels, Richter, Rostropovich, Oistrakh and Kogan. Despite the reputation she had earned she was never permitted to play outside the Eastern Bloc.

In 1975, distressed over constant restraints on her personal and artistic freedom, she applied for a US visa. Her actions resulted in a loss of her position as a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. She was deprived of all concert engagements. In 1977 she was finally allowed to move to New York thanks to diligence and a petition from many prominent writers, senators, actors and musicians including Leonard Bernstein. Four months later, she made her first New York appearance in a recital at the Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center for which she received acclaim from the press. Soon after that she made her Carnegie Hall debut recital attended by a capacity crowd. She has since taken her place among the major pianists of the world.

In addition to her success as a concert pianist and recording artist, Oxana Yablonskaya is a professor at The Julliard School, and delivers numerous master classes around the world. She was a Co-Founder of the Puigcerda Musica Clasica International Festival in Spain.

Oxana Yablonskaya has also served on the jury of many international piano competitions such as Leeds, Franz Liszt, Prokofiev, Sendai and Hamamatsu in Japan, 2005 Seiler, and Vladimir Horowitz.