Winner of the 2022 Honens International Piano Competition, Ukrainian pianist Illia Ovcharenko has taken the piano world by storm. Furthermore, in the past nine years, he has been awarded prizes at more than 20 other competitions throughout the world; in the last four years these have included first prize at the New York international competition and second prize at the Hilton Head International competition in 2022, and first prize at “Prix du Piano” Bern International Competition and The Michelangeli Prize of the Eppan Piano Academy (Italy) in 2021. Highlights of the previous season included debuts with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Liechtenstein Symphony, and Haifa Symphony, as well as his return to the Calgary Philharmonic. The same season also saw Illia Ovcharenko’s recital debuts at Koerner Hall in Toronto, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Robert-Schumann-Saal in Düsseldorf, and Salle Bourgie in Montréal. Born in Ukraine, in a non-musical family to a computer engineer mother and an athlete and coach father, Illia Ovcharenko discovered the unattended upright- piano sitting in a corner of his house at a tender age. At the age of six, he was taken to a performance of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto; after the concert, Illia told his mother he wanted to be a pianist, and began his formal musical tuition. Success rapidly followed, and he made his concert debut at the National Philharmonic Hall of Ukraine at the age of 12 before moving to Kiev to attend the Kyiv Lysenko State Music Lyceum for gifted children. He then went on to study in Israel with Arie Vardi at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv, and in Germany at the Hannover Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien. This is his first appearance with the Israel Philharmonic.