Ilya Ram
Ilya Ram
The young Israeli-American conductor Ilya Ram – praised as “pleasant to follow in his work as well as in his gestures, whatever the repertoire” and noted for his “expressive spontaneity” as well as “[placing] great value on high-contrast, well-differentiated music-making, and precision” – is slowly emerging as a unique voice in the classical music landscape.
Ilya currently serves as Music Director of the Leipziger Univesitätsorchester. 2021/22 season highlights include his debut at the Semperoper Dresden – premiering a new production by the composer Zad Moultaka, his return to the stage of the Gewandhaus Leipzig with the LUO, and taking part in the 3rd and final stage of the Music.Multimedia.Managemt Project led by the Szczecin Philharmonic in collaboration with Fjord Cadenza Festival and TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, where he is mentored and assists artistic director Rune Bergmann on a number of projects.
Most recently, Ilya won the audience prize at the 5th Evgeny Svetlanov Competition held in Monte-Carlo. He is also a Prize-winner of the 8th Central-German MDR Conducting Competition, as well as a recipient of several prestigious scholarships including the “Yotzrim” Scholarship for independent artists, AICF “Sharet” Scholarship, the DAAD Scholarship for his studies in Germany, and a two-time bursary student of the Dartington Music Festival.
Some of his more notable engagements included Resident Conductor at the Theater Chemnitz in the 19/20 season, assisting the Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento at the Biennale di Venezia, assisting the HR-Frankfurt in the Music Discovery Project right before COVID, and jumping in to conduct a series of Christmas concerts with the Elbland Philharmonie Sachsen, to whom he will return in the 22/23 season. He has also had the pleasure to work with soloists as Pekka Kuusisto, Amandine Savary, Ilian Garnetz, Ildiko Szabo, and Charlotte Thiele, to name a few.
Ilya was amongst the four young conductors to be selected to participate in the first-ever Bayreuther Festspiele masterclass for conductors and has also participated in several other international masterclasses and festivals. Amongst others, Ilya has studied with Christian Thielemann, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sakari Oramo, Neeme Järvi, Marek Janowski, Hartmut Hänchen, Robert Trevino, Steven Sloane, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Tim Redmond, Nicolas Pasquet, Johannes Schlaefli, and Jorma Panula.
In 2015 Ilya graduated Cum Laude from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel-Aviv with a B.A. in Orchestral Conducting and Musicology. He completed his Master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting at the Hochschule für Musik “Carl Maria von Weber” in Dresden, in the class of Prof. Ekkehard Klemm and has recently completed the Advanced Professional Training for Conductors Program at the UdK Berlin, studying with Maestros Steven Sloane and Harry Curtis.
A strong believer in the humanities, Ilya spent a year volunteering in underprivileged communities in Israel prior to beginning his formal studies, working with children both in and outside the education system. During his studies in Tel-Aviv, he continued volunteering at the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights.
(Updated June. ’22)
