Sunday
7 March 2027

Since then Ilya has given solo recitals in Europe and North America and performed with artists such as Mikhail Pletnev, Paavo Järvi, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Marin Alsop, Nicholas McGegan, Junichi Hirokami, Anne-Marie McDermott, Victor Julien-Laferrière, Anton Nel and David Radzynski. His orchestral partners include the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, the Bayer Symphony Orchestra and New Music Orchestras.

Becoming a finalist at the Cliburn Competition and receiving its prize for the Best Performance of a Mozart Concerto was a major milestone in his career. In the same year, 2022, he made his New York debut as winner of the Carnegie Weill Recital Hall Debut Audition. As a Steinway Prize winner he made his debut at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg in January 2026, and in December 2025 the Aargauer Zeitung named his debut album The Winner’s Recital one of the ten best albums of 2025.

A graduate of the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory, he has lived in Kansas City (USA) and Madrid (Spain) since 2019.

The 2025/26 season brought Cimento wonderful opportunities. He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival conducting the YSP final concert and appeared as a guest at the Richard Strauss Festival, the Gustav Mahler Music Weeks, the Neue Wiener Staatsoper (NEST) and, in Italy, with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto. A highlight was the Austrian premiere of Salieri’s Il mondo alla rovescia, a rarity Cimento himself discovered in the archives of the theatre in Legnago, which met with a strong international response. He was also appointed Conductor in Residence of the KALA Chamber Orchestra.

Cimento is equally at home in the symphonic repertoire. He has performed at the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg, the Teatro Verdi in Trieste and the concert hall of a music conservatory in Beijing, among others. He has conducted orchestras such as the Cappella Aquileia, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Norddeutsche Philharmonie, the Prague State Opera Chamber Orchestra and the Munich Symphony Orchestra.

His experience in historically informed performance is particularly valuable, including as assistant to Martin Haselböck at the Wiener Akademie (Liszt Festival Raiding, Brucknerhaus Linz), to Thomas Hengelbrock with the Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble (Cavalleria rusticana in Baden-Baden), and to Christoph Meier at the Teatro Barocco festival in Vienna, where, directing from the fortepiano, he conducted the world premiere of Benda’s Philon und Theone as well as Gluck’s La corona and Haydn’s L’isola disabitata. This production was nominated for the Austrian Music Theatre Award 2019.

With a great passion for working closely with singers, he has coached Italian for the voice classes at the Würzburg University of Music and regularly serves on the juries of singing competitions such as Vincerò and the Belvedere Singing Competition. From 2021 to 2023 he was principal répétiteur and Kapellmeister at the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg, and in 2020 répétiteur at the Theater Kiel.

His early career as an organist and composer gives Cimento a fresh approach to the score as well as a keen sense of historical practice. He attended the improvisation class of Loïc Mallié, a pupil of Olivier Messiaen, at the CNSMD in Lyon, and completed his organ diploma with Pier Damiano Peretti and his conducting diploma with Johannes Wildner at the mdw in Vienna, both with distinction. He also earned a master’s degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich with Marcus Bosch and Georg Fritzsch, and attended masterclasses with renowned conductors such as Christian Thielemann (Bayreuth Festival), Daniele Gatti (Accademia Musicale Chigiana), Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Yu Feng, Karel Mark Chichon, Donato Renzetti, Michalis Economou and Nicolás Pasquet.

He is a winner of the Ö1 Talentebörse, an award for Austria’s most talented arts students, of the 9th Max Liebhaber Young Artist Award 2019 of the Heidenheim Opera Festival, and of the Leopold Hager Conductors’ Fund 2025.