About
Ivari Ilja was born in Tallinn in 1959. From 1977 to 1981 he studied under Laine Mets at Tallinn State Conservatoire and in 1984 he graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (class of Vera Gornostayeva), while from 1984 to 1986 he undertook a postgraduate-assistantship study there under Sergei Dorensky.
Prize-winner at the Competition of Estonian Pianists in Tallinn (1980; 2nd prize), the Belorussian Competition of Pianists in Minsk (1980; 3rd prize), the Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition (Warsaw, 1985; diploma for artistic merit) and the Vianna da Motta International Music Competition (Lisbon, 1987; 4th prize and special award).
From 1978 to 1981 he worked as a rehearsal pianist at the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Estonian SSR “Estonia”. In 1986 he became a teacher at Tallinn State Conservatoire (from 1993 the Estonian Academy of Music and since 2005 the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre), becoming an associate professor in 1994, a professor in 1999 and rector in 2017.
Performs concerts in Estonia, Russia, Sweden, Finland and France among other countries. Has appeared at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall, the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, the St Petersburg Philharmonia, the Moscow Conservatory, the Hamburg Staatsoper, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, Vienna’s Musikverein and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Has collaborated with Irina Arkhipova, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Maria Guleghina, Elena Zaremba, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and the Nordic Symphony Orchestra (Tallinn).
Repertoire includes works by Chopin, Brahms, Schumann, Mozart, Prokofiev, Britten and Chausson among other composers.
In 2001 he was awarded the Culture Award of the Republic of Estonia, and in 2006 he received the Prize of the Estonian Music Council.
Licentiate of the Sibelius Academy. President of the Estonian Music Council, Chairman of the Board of the Estonian Performers’ Association, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Music Endowment of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Honorary Member of the Estonian Piano Teachers’ Association.
Information for March 2020