Ivan Ilić (Belgrade, March 7, 1972), doctor of arts, is a Serbian keyboardist, conductor, arranger, composer and trombonist. He has been an assistant professor at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade at the Department of Jazz and Popular Music since 2018.
He was born on March 7, 1972 in Belgrade, where he graduated from the “Mokranjac” elementary and secondary music school.
In 1992, he graduated with the highest grades in arranging at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he completed the four-year program in two years, and then moved to Canada, where he engaged in music pedagogy and led popular and jazz music ensembles.
He completed specialist studies in conducting in the class of Professor Stanko Šepić at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade in 2008.[1]
He completed his master’s studies in jazz trombone at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade.
He received his doctorate in multimedia art at the University of Arts in Belgrade, under the mentorship of prof. emeritus Svetozar Rapajić, staging the original musical “Cave”, directed by Jana Maričić and in collaboration with librettist Slobodan Obradović. The cave was performed at the BELEF 2019 festival.
After returning to Belgrade from Canada, he collaborates with the RTS Big Band as an arranger, conductor, composer and trombone player and leads the orchestra at numerous concerts, festivals, recordings, guest appearances and recordings for radio and television. He collaborated with a large number of Serbian and international jazz musicians, and performed at many international jazz festivals around the world.
He has been a permanent member of Jovan Maljoković’s band for over 20 years, with whom he also recorded important releases for PGP-RTS.
He collaborated with a large number of Serbian musicians such as Van Gogh, Ana Stanić, Momčilo Bajagić Bajaga, Željko Joksimović, Lepa Brena, Svetlana Ražnatović and many others. He composed music for the theater, video productions and musicals such as Golje (2001), Spusti se na zemlju (2006) and Glavo Luda for the theater in Terazije, where he also signed arrangements for 4 more licensed productions of important Broadway titles (The Producers, Chorus Line, Sweet Charity, Victor/Victoria).[1] He is the author of the music for the play America the Second Part by Biljana Srbljanović, directed by Dejan Mijač (Atelje 212), as well as the music for the feature film S.O.S. — Save our souls from 2007 by Slobodan Šijana.
He was the conductor of the RTS Big Band in the period from 2001-2018. He is the president of the Association of Jazz, Entertainment and Rock Musicians of Serbia, as well as the president of the Assembly of the Agency for the Exercising of Performers’ Rights in Serbia. From August 2006 to 2018, he was a member of the band Galija.
