Irina Tsirulnikova was born in Chelyabinsk. In 1999 she graduated from the Special Music School at the Urals Conservatory (Irina Loginovskaya's classes) and continued her education at the P.I. Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory followed by assistantship- internship there (Professor Igor Frolov's classes). She also had internship training in Alexander Kirov's classes.
In 2003, she joined the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia where she is the second concertmaster of the second violin section at present.