Ilay Dahan

Ilay Dahan is a Berlin-based cellist whose work spans solo and chamber music performance, contemporary music and music education.

Contemporary repertoire is at the centre of his artistic profile. In 2026 he toured with the Ulysses Ensemble and performed with the Ensemble Intercontemporain. With Sascha Etezazi he initiated "SHIR | 2024 | שיר", a project commissioning new works for cello. He has collaborated with and premiered works by composers including Hillel Zori, Caio de Azevedo and Parham Behzad, and has worked with visual artist Sigalit Landau and composer Aviya Kopelman.

As a chamber musician, he performs regularly in a duo with pianist Dina Stojilković and has appeared alongside artists such as Matthias Buchholz, Ilya Kaler, Alfredo Perl, Michael Barenboim and Martti Rousi. As an orchestral musician he has served as principal cellist of the Detmold Chamber Orchestra and has performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra and the Europe Symphony Orchestra Potsdam under conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Iván Fischer, Manfred Honeck and Lahav Shani.

Education is an integral part of his work. He teaches at the City West Music School in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and leads the cello section rehearsals of the Charlottenburg Youth Orchestra. At the Barenboim-Said Akademie he is project manager and guest lecturer for "Musik spricht", a music education project for children in Berlin schools.

A graduate of the Konzertexamen programme at the University of Music Würzburg, Ilay Dahan previously studied at the Barenboim-Said Akademie, the Detmold University of Music and the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv. His development as a cellist was shaped above all by Frans Helmerson, Xenia Jankovic and Hillel Zori. He is a prizewinner of the Seraphin Cello Competition, the Verão Clássico Music Prizes in Lisbon, the Virtuoso & Belcanto International Cello Competition in Italy and the Concerto Competition of the mdw International Summer Academy in Vienna. His studies were supported by the German Music Council and the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.

In the context of the ULYSSES Platform, Ilay was a member of the ULYSSES Ensemble 2026.