Biography
Ilva Eigus was born in Switzerland in 2007. She received her first violin lesson at the age of three and a half from Liana Tretiakova and continues to study with her 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 extraordinary talent was recognized at an early age and she has been taught by the renowned violin professor Zakhar Bron since she was seven. She gained further inspiration at master classes with Maxim Vengerov, Marc Bouchkov, Daniel Hope, Ingolf Turban, Henning Kraggerud, Priya Mitchell, Sayaka Shoji, Latica Honda-Rosenberg, Alexandra Soumm, as well as cellist Claire Oppert and pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov. She is a scholarship holder of the Academy of Music in Liechtenstein, where she regularly takes part in the activities of the academy.
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Ilva is a multiple 1st prize winner of the “Swiss Youth Music Competition” (SJMW) in the category violin solo as well as chamber music and top prize winner of renowned international competitions: 1st prize at the “XXI International Nutcracker Competition” in Moscow in 2020, and 2nd prize at the “Wieniawski-Lipinski Violin Competition” in Lublin, Poland in 2021.
Ilva made her orchestral debut at the age of eight with the Kabalevsky Violin Concerto. Since then, she has played as a soloist with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Moscow Philharmonic, the Prague Royal Philharmonic and the Novosibirsk Philharmonic, among others.
Ilva was invited to perform in venues such as Tonhalle Zurich, Mozarteum Salzburg, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the Bolshoi Theatre and the House of Music in Moscow, Château de Chillon in Montreux, Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and at festivals such as the Trans-Siberian Art Festival, Festival de Musique de Menton, Septembre Musical in Montreux-Vevey, Zaubersee Festival Lucerne and Musikwoche Braunwald.
She is eager to explore contemporary music, having premiered works by Daniel Schnyder, Nik Bärtsch and Samy Moussa. In 2023, she will take part at the Verbier Festival Academy as a Junior Student and will make her debuts at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and Enjoy Jazz Festival in Mannheim.
She is also very passionate about chamber music and performs regularly with pianist Alexandra Dovgan and cellist Maxime Grizard.
Ilva has been supported by the Fritz Gerber Foundation, the Ruth and Ernst Burkhalter Foundation, the Lyra Foundation, the Pierino Ambrosoli Foundation and the Kiwanis Club Zollikon.
She plays an Omobono Stradivari from 1707, on generous loan from the Stradivari Stiftung Habisreutinger-Huggler-Coray.