İlyun Bürkev

Born in İzmir in 2008, İlyun Bürkev began the piano at the age of four and studied at the Istanbul State Conservatory of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University with Burcu Aktaş Urgun. She now studies with Pavel Gililov at the Mozarteum University Salzburg and has taken part in masterclasses with Alfred Brendel.

She is a laureate of the Jeune Chopin International Piano Competition and won the Grand Prix of the Philadelphia International Music Festival Concerto Competition in 2024.

At fourteen she toured Germany with the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn, performing Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto at venues including the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Herkulessaal in Munich. In 2024 she opened the 52nd Istanbul Music Festival with Grieg’s Piano Concerto under Cem Mansur, and in 2025 she performed the same work at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg with the Turkish National Youth Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. In March 2026 she played Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Sofia Philharmonic under Nayden Todorov.

Her recital appearances include her debut at Bechstein Hall and, in 2026, her French recital debut at the Piano aux Jacobins festival in Toulouse. She appears on Saint-Saëns: Complete Concertos (New Talents Edition 3), released by Berlin Classics in April 2026, performing Le Carnaval des animaux with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Howard Griffiths.