Biography

Trained in France and the United States, Ilan Zajtmann pursues a career as a soloist and chamber musician. During the 2025–2026 season, he performed Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto with the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Nancy-Lorraine at the Festival de Fénétrange, Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lyon, and Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with Orchestre Elektra for the closing concert of Les Pianissimes’ season. Philippe Cassard invited him to Studio 104 at the Maison de la Radio et de la Musique for an evening celebrating ten years of Portraits de famille and his twenty years on radio. In 2026, Zajtmann also took part in the Maria João Pires Academy at the Opéra National de Bordeaux and Michel Dalberto’s excellence programme at the Festival des Arcs.

In 2025, Concertclassic notes that his name is now circulating among observers attentive to the emergence of new performers. The magazine highlights “the richness of his sound”, his “art of narration” and his “sense of listening”, describing playing that is “stunning in its commitment and freedom”.

Having attracted attention at the 2025 International Telekom Beethoven Competition in Bonn, Ilan Zajtmann was profiled by Bonn’s General-Anzeiger , which praised his “great expressive power” and “impressive range of interpretative possibilities”. Writing about Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 109, the newspaper noted his “formal clarity”, “technical command” and “remarkable precision”. That same year, the magazine Pianiste published a profile recognising “a poetic intelligence that is nothing short of astonishing”.

Quotations from the General-Anzeiger translated from German.

Born into a musical family in 2001, Ilan Zajtmann began learning the piano with his father at the age of three. At ten, he made his debut as a soloist with orchestra at the Teatro Castro Alves in Salvador da Bahia, performing Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with the NEOJIBA Orchestra under Ricardo Castro.

Admitted to the CNSMD de Lyon at thirteen, he studied with Florent Boffard before continuing his training at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris with Roger Muraro and Marie-Josèphe Jude. He also studied with Igor Lazko at the Schola Cantorum. In 2020, he joined Boris Berman’s studio at the Yale School of Music, earning a Master of Music in 2022 and a Master of Musical Arts in 2023.

Upon returning to France, he continued his work with Célimène Daudet. He now studies with Michel Dalberto at the Conservatoire Rachmaninoff in Paris as part of its international competition preparation programme, and has received guidance from Dina Yoffe and Nikolai Lugansky in masterclasses.

Chamber music holds an essential place in his career. In 2019, he founded Trio Solaris with violinist Elena Cotrone and cellist Cyprien Keiser. His other partners include Marie-Aude Melliès and Grégoire Torossian. He has appeared in recital and chamber music performances in France and abroad, including at the Philharmonie Luxembourg, Salle Cortot, Radio France’s Studio 104 and the Archives nationales.

A recipient of the 2021 Antena 2/ACIM Prize at SIPO in Óbidos, Ilan Zajtmann also won the Alexander Scriabin International Competition in Paris.