VIKTOR ILIĆ

Serbia

concert

Viktor Ilić (b. 1986) completed his secondary music education at the "Lisinski" Music School in Belgrade and graduated from the Faculty of Music (FMU) in Belgrade, studying under Srđan Tošić. He later completed his Master’s studies at the same faculty and is currently pursuing doctoral academic studies at FMU under the mentorship of Aleksandar Hadži-Đorđević. He has perfected his craft with some of the world's leading guitarists, including The Assad Brothers, John Duarte, Roberto Aussel, Manuel Barrueco, Costas Cotsiolis, Carlo Marchione, Nikita Koshkin, Gerhard Reichenbach, and Pablo Marquez.

Since 2010, he has been dedicated to the expansion of the guitar repertoire. In addition to performance and pedagogy, he works on transcription, arrangement, and music notation. He is the founder of the digital transcription library GriffCraft. His students have won over forty awards at national and international competitions. Ilić has collaborated with many artists, including José Luis Martinez, Vojin Kocić, Natalija Mladenović, and Yuri Revich. He revised the composition Festa na Lua by composer Veljko Nenadić.

He is the recipient of more than twenty national and international competition awards, including those from the Guitar Art Festival and the Andrés Segovia Competition in Felbert, Germany. He has been awarded scholarships from the Dutch government under the patronage of Queen Beatrix II, the "Dr. Zoran Đinđić" Young Talent Scholarship, the Order of King Aleksandar Karađorđević, and has been named an honorary citizen of Smederevo. He also received a plaque for his contribution to the development of guitar music in Bulgaria.

In 2017, the London Philharmonic Orchestra ranked his guitar transcription of Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 among the top ten arrangements in the world. Viktor Ilić is the founder and director of the Mons Aureus Guitar Festival.