ILLIA OVCHARENKO

Born in Chernihiv, Ukraine, Illia Ovcharenko’s mother is a computer engineer and his father a coach and athlete. He discovered the piano by himself, in a quiet little corner of his home where he liked to sneak away to play. After attending a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra at age six, Illia told his mother he wanted to be a pianist when he grew up and asked her to enroll him in the local music school. Success quickly followed, and the 12-year-old made his concert pianist debut at the Ukraine National Philharmonic. Later, he moved to Kyiv to enter the Kyiv Lysenko State Music Lyceum for gifted children. In his teens, he studied with eminent educator and teacher Arie Vardi at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv. Auvers-sur-Oise Festival founding director Pascal Escande spotted the 17-year-old at the 2018 Campus International Piano Competition. The festival regularly invites him to perform recitals and concertos in Auvers, Paris and the Île-de-France, such as in 2023 when he played Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto with the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France. In 2024, this loyal support in a spirit of residence led to the recording of Litany, his first CD in France, at DiscAuverS, the Auvers-sur-Oise Festival’s label backed by its foundation.
Illia won the 2022 Honens International Piano Competition and took the music world by storm. In the past eight years, he has received awards at over 20 international competitions, including first prize at the New York International Competition, second prize at the 2022 Hilton Head International Competition, first prize at the Bern International Competition, the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Prize at the Eppan Piano Academy (Italy) in 2021 and, the same year, the Busoni International Piano Competition Prize (Bergamo, Italy) and the Singapore International Competition Prize.
Illia embodies the values of the Honens Piano International Competition, which named him “the complete artist”. International critics have praised his technical mastery, perseverance in the face of adversity, unique intellectual and emotional understanding of the score and powerful charisma. In 2022 and 2023, he triumphed at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Dresden International Festival, on an international recital tour that took him to Belgium, France, Liechtenstein, Portugal, Germany and Canada and at concerts with the Monnaie Symphony Orchestra in Brussels, the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of the 2024 season include debuts with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra and Haifa Symphony Orchestra, as well as his return to Calgary for projects with the Philharmonic Orchestra. He will also make his recital debuts at Toronto’s Koerner Hall, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Hanover’s Sendesaal, Düsseldorf’s Robert-Schumann- Saal and the Salle Bourgie in Montreal. Under the supervision of his mentor Arie Vardiat, Illia is working on a master’s degree at the Hannover Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien.