She studied with Armen Shakhbagyan, a composer with a reputation established in the 1970s, and paid special attention to the works of Anna Akhmatova.
From 1986, Pavlova worked for the Russian Musical Society Board in Moscow, before relocating in 1990 to New York City.
Following her arrival in New York, Pavlova compiled a collection for her daughter Irene consisting of simple pieces for piano inspired by the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen.
The symphony seeks to convey the melancholic burden and feelings of pain the composer felt on leaving her home country.
The work is articulated in a single movement, and is scored for a small ensemble consisting of two violins, a cello, a piano, a flute, and a piccolo,.
Pavlova waited for four years to compose her next work for larger forces, an Elegy (1998) for piano and string orchestra, barely four minutes long, motivated by the death of her teacher Shakhbagyan.
Her music takes as its inspiration the great Russian masters of the 20th century (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, etc.