Ilya Konovalov was born to a musical family in Novosibirsk (USSR) in 1977. At the age of 7 he commenced his studies with Prof. Zakhar Bron and later with Prof. Alexey Gvozdev in Novosibirsk. During this time he was a prize winner in the All-Russian and Wieniawski International Violin Competition. He later studied with Prof. Dora Schwarzberg at the Vienna Academy of Music.

Ilya has perfomed all over Russia and Europe and in Brazil, Indonesia,Korea and Japan. He has appeared with prestigious orchestras such as the "Moscow Virtuosi", the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra,the Israel Sinfonieta Beer-Sheva, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra "Musica Viva" , the Saint Petersburg State Capella Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow State Symphony, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra, the American-Russian Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of conductors such as Vladimir Spivakov, Hugh Wolf, Zubin Mehta and Yoel Levi. He played chamber music with many prominent artists, among them Alexnder Rudin, Yuri Bashmet, Rudolf Buchbinder, Lynn Harell , Arkady Zenziper, Dora Schwarzberg, Steven Isserlis, Misha Maisky etc.

For the past 10 years he has been participating many prestigious festivals such as: "Young Artists in Concert", Festival in Davos Switzerland, "Schubertiaden" Music Festival in Germany, Haifa Music Festival and " Dreiklang" Festival in Gemany. Ilya Konovalov has recorded two CD’s for Melodiya label in Russia and the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra under Arnold Katz. Since 1997 he has been Concertmaster of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta.

Ilya Konovalov is the 1st violinist of the Israel Philharmonic String Quartet  wich was found in 2006 by the the request of Maestro Mehta and supported by the Richter family.

Since 2006 Ilya Konovalov teaching violin and chamber music at the Buchmann – Mehta School of Music at the Tel Aviv University.