Ilya Demutsky
Ilya Demutsky is a multi-award-winning composer, performer and conductor whose work spans orchestral, choral, chamber, piano, vocal and electronic music, as well as film scores. He holds a Master’s degree in choral conducting from the St Petersburg State Conservatory and a Master’s degree in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with David Conte as a Fulbright Scholar.
Demutsky’s score for the full-length ballet A Hero of Our Time (choreography by Yuri Possokhov, direction by Kirill Serebrennikov) at the Bolshoi Theatre earned him the Golden Mask Award for Best Composition in the Music Theatre category, Russia’s highest theatre honour. The production was also named Best Ballet of the 2015/16 season. In 2017, San Francisco Ballet opened its season with the world premiere of his ballet Optimistic Tragedy, followed by the premiere of Nureyev at the Bolshoi Theatre. Nureyev went on to receive four Prix Benois de la Danse awards in 2018, including Best Composer.
In 2019, Demutsky was commissioned by Joffrey Ballet and The Australian Ballet to compose a full-length score for Anna Karenina, based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel—marking the first commission of this kind in Joffrey Ballet’s history. The production toured internationally in the United States and Australia. He is also the composer of the full-length ballet Gabrielle Chanel, created in collaboration with the fashion house Chanel.
The ballet The Seagull, commissioned by the Bolshoi Theatre in 2021, received both the Golden Mask Award and the BraVo Award for Best Ballet. Among his forthcoming projects for 2026 are Eugene Onegin for San Francisco Ballet and Joffrey Ballet, as well as Salle de danse for The Royal Ballet in London, choreographed by Paul Lightfoot and Sol León.
In 2016, Demutsky was named European Composer of the Year by the European Film Academy for his score to The Student (dir. Kirill Serebrennikov). His film work also includes The Disappearance of Josef Mengele, selected for the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.