Ilya Shmukler

When he was three years old, Moscow native Ilya Shmukler’s mother found him jumping on the bed and beautifully singing Robertino Loreti’s “Jamaica.” She immediately recognized his musical talent and started him in lessons. It was important to his non-musician parents that he be raised as a well-rounded person, so early years were also spent on school, table tennis and ballroom dancing. But at age 10, Ilya says his life changed after winning his first music competition and attending the subsequent summer academy: “There I discovered a true musical life, and I fell in love with it, inspiring me to commit my life to music.”

Shmukler performed his first recital at age 12, and orchestral debut at 14. He has since made solo appearances in Europe and North America, performing with the Mariinsky Theatre, Fort Worth Symphony, Sendai Philharmonic, Bayer Symphoniker, Tambov Symphonic, and New Music Orchestras, among others. 

Ilya has taken top prizes at international piano competitions including the New York Virtuoso, Lewisville Lake Symphony, Artist Presentation Society (St. Louis), Shigeru Kawai (Tokyo), Sсriabin–Rachmaninov (Bulgaria), and Rachmaninov (St. Petersburg) Competitions. He was a quarterfinalist in the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and achieved the career milestone in the 2022 competition as a finalist and award winner of “Best Performance of a Mozart Concerto”. In December 2022, he also made his debut at the venerated Carnegie Hall.

Ilya completed his master’s degree with honors at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 2021, under Elena Kuznetsova and Sergey Kuznetsov. Presently, he studies with Stanislav Ioudenitch at the International Center for Music at Park University in Parkville, Missouri.

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