Ilva Eigus

Ilva Eigus was born in Zurich in 2007. She received her first violin lesson at the age of three and a half from Liana Tretiakova and is still taught by her today at the Zakhar Bron School of Music in Zurich. Ilva is currently a student at the PreCollege of the Zurich University of the Arts and at the K&S Gymnasium Rämibühl.

Ilva's outstanding talent was recognised at an early age, meaning she has been taught by the renowned violin professor Zakhar Bron since the age of seven. She gained further inspiration at master classes given by professors and violinists such as Maxim Vengerov, Daniel Hope, Viktor Tretiakov, Latica Honda-Rosenberg, Henning Kraggerud, Sayaka Shoji, Boris Garlitsky, Alexandra Soumm, Esther Hoppe, Priya Mitchell, Natalia Lomeiko as well as cellist Claire Oppert and pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov.

Ilva made her performance debut at the age of six at the invitation of the Swiss Foundation for the Promotion of Musically Gifted Children. Her orchestral debut - a performance of the Kabalevsky Violin Concerto with a symphony orchestra - followed at the age of eight. Since then, she has performed more than a dozen times as a soloist with orchestras and has acquired a considerable repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary music. In 2017 and 2018, Ilva performed in the Young Artists Concert Series at the Jean Cocteau Museum in Menton, southern France - the youngest participant in the 70-year history of the Festival de Musique. In 2018 Ilva performed at the Trans-Siberian Art Festival in the world premiere of the Concerto Grosso "iGeneration" by Swiss composer Daniel Schnyder and in Prokofiev's «Cinderella» Suite with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Novosibirsk.

Ilva is a multiple first prize winner of the Swiss Youth Music Competition in the violin solo and chamber music categories and a laureate of renowned international competitions. Most recently, she was awarded the «Golden Nutcracker» at the XXI International TV Competition in Moscow in 2020 and in 2021 she won 2nd prize at the Wieniawski-Lipinski Violin Competition in Lublin, Poland.

In 2021 Ilva debuted at the Septembre Musical Festival in Montreux-Vevey, the Golden Festival Herrliberg and the Festival Herbst in der Helferei in Zurich. Ilva also devotes herself to chamber music with great passion.

Ilva's performances have been commended by the media in Switzerland, France, Latvia, Russia, Italy and even in the prestigious violin magazine «The Strad».