Illia Ovcharenko

Illia was born in Ukraine in 2001 into a family of teachers. He began playing the piano at the age of eight in Elena Dingeko's class. At the age of twelve, he was invited to study at the most famous music school in Ukraine, the Kiev Music School in the class of Nataliia Gridneva and Andrii Lunov, where he graduated in 2018. He is now studying his bachelor's degree at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv under the direction of Arie Vardi. 

He attended master classes with Daniil Trifonov, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Milana Cherni-avskaiia, Andrea Bonnata, Rena Shereshevskaia, Murray Perahia, Fabio Bidini, Pavel Nersessi-an, Boris Bloch and Aviram Reichert, among others. He is also a scholarship holder at the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein, where he takes part in the intensive music weeks and activities of the academy. 

At the age of nine, Illia won his first competition. Since 2010, he has won more than 20 piano competitions in Ukraine, the USA, Russia, Italy, France, Poland, Israel, the Czech Republic, etc. Among other things, he won the "Michelangeli Prize" at the Eppan Piano Academy (Appiano, Italy) and the 1^st prize at the "Prix du Piano Bern International Piano Competition" (Bern, Switzerland). He was the 6^th prize winner at the “Busoni International Piano Competition”, won the 1^st prize at the “Viseu International Piano Competition” in Portugal and the 2^nd prize at the “Aspen Concerto Piano Competition” at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. In 2019, he was the absolute winner as well as the 1^st prize winner of the “12. International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz” (WFIMC) with the EMCY Prize and he won the diploma at the “Paderewski International Piano Competition” in Poland. In 2018, he won the 1^st prize and the special prize at the “Kyiv International Piano Competition” (KYIPC). In 2017, he was a prize winner and special prize winner at the “11. International competition for young pianists in memory of Arthur Rubinstein", winner of the "Junior Academy Eppan" in Italy and absolute winner of the "International Piano Competition Resonanzen" in Paris. He was also a laureate and winner of the special prize of the "International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz" 2016.