Dragoș Ilie

Biography

From Iași, and back again

A Romanian guitarist trained in Iași, Georgia and Texas, now teaching in the city where he began. Laureate of more than forty international competitions and a recording artist for Naxos.

Dragoș Ilie standing with his guitar held by the neck against a dark wooden wall
Photograph by Ioana Hameeda Chiță

Iași

Childhood to 2015

Dragoș Ilie fell for the guitar listening to his father play, and learned his first chords from him.

He began formal lessons at eight at the Popular School of Arts in Iași, then studied at the Octav Băncilă National College of Art in the class of Marius Țîmpău, working in parallel with Daniel Dragomirescu of the Iași conservatory.

Support came early. He held the MOL Foundation scholarship for young artists, a grant from the Young Talents programme of the Princess Margareta of Romania Foundation with the support of the Royal House of Romania, and START scholarships. Together they took him to festivals and competitions across Europe while he was still at school.

Columbus, Georgia

2015 to 2019

In 2015 he won the Woodruff Scholarship, a four-year award, to study at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University with the composer and guitarist Andrew Zohn. His results followed quickly. In 2018 he won first prize at the Texas A&M International Guitar Symposium and shared first prize in the Open Division of the Indiana International Guitar Competition at the Jacobs School of Music.

Those prizes came during a long injury. A guitar-related back injury limited him to a few minutes at the instrument a day for nearly two years. He kept learning by studying scores away from the guitar, and took the Body Mapping for Musicians course at Columbus State, which changed how he uses his body when he plays.

“The class helped me understand how a musician’s body works and also helped me integrate good alignment to the everyday life,” he said at the time. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music in performance in 2019.

Ilie seated on a recital stage in a dark shirt, playing
Indiana International Guitar Competition, Bloomington, 2018

Austin, Texas

2019 to 2024

At the University of Texas at Austin he studied with Adam Holzman for a master’s degree and then a doctorate, and spent four years as teaching assistant in Holzman’s guitar studio. In 2021 he joined the Austin Guitar Quartet, with Chad Ibison, Janet Grohovac and Stephen Krishnan, a quartet already heard on Conspirare’s Grammy-nominated album The Singing Guitar. That year they played Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint live for Ballet Austin, in Stephen Mills’s new dance Counterpoint. The Austin years in the quartet. In 2020 he also joined Ex-Aequo, a nonprofit guitar collective that ran online masterclasses, concerts and a competition through the pandemic, and commissioned nine new works from Black American composers.

His strongest competition years came here. He won the Grand Prize of the 2020 New York Guitar Competition, first prize at the first International GuitarLab Competition, second prize at the 2022 Koblenz International Guitar Competition, second prize at the 65th Tokyo International Guitar Competition that December, first prize in the artist category at the 2023 GCC Changsha International Guitar Festival, and third prize at the 2024 Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition.

Between them he played for guitar societies and concert series across the United States, in Atlanta, Chattanooga, New Orleans, DeKalb, San Jose, Pacific Grove, Marfa, Alpine and southern Oregon, with masterclasses along the way.

Ilie alone on the stage of a dark auditorium with red seats
Jessen Auditorium, The University of Texas at Austin, 2023. Film still, Altamira Guitars

Bucharest and Iași

2021 to today

In 2021 Ilie shared the Moștenitorii României Muzicale scholarship of Radio România Muzical and Rotary Club Pipera with the cellist Cornelius Zirbo. The award paid for his debut album, Guitar Delights, recorded with Radio România Muzical that December and published by Editura Casa Radio in 2023, and it brought concerto engagements with the Romanian Radio Chamber Orchestra and the National Radio Orchestra. In October 2024 he gave his first recital in the Great Hall of the Romanian Athenaeum, broadcast live by Radio România Muzical.

Since 2022 he has been the stage partner of the violinist Alexandru Tomescu and the 1702 “Elder-Voicu” Stradivarius. Their first Stradivarius Tour, Paganini Magic, took Paganini’s sonatas for violin and guitar to thirteen Romanian cities, and in 2025 they recorded the programme on CD. For Rapsodiile, the 2025 tour, Ilie arranged Enescu’s two Romanian Rhapsodies for violin and guitar. The duo gave the opening concert of the Sibiu International Theatre Festival and the first night of the George Enescu Festival Square, and took the programme to the Basilica of Santa Cecilia in Rome. Muzele followed in 2026 with the bandoneonist Omar Massa, under the High Patronage of the President of Romania. Ilie has said that his permanent return to Romania is tied to that first tour. The duo, tour by tour.

In 2026 he formed the Romanian Guitar Quartet with Costin Soare, Dan Alexandru Arhire and Ioan Bănescu. Their first tour, Anotimpuri, took Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and four new works by young Romanian composers to ten heritage sites, from Peleș Castle to the Palace of Culture in Iași. The quartet.

For Naxos he has recorded the complete guitar sonatas of Wenzel Thomas Matiegka in two volumes. The first was released in April 2026. He is Assistant Professor at the George Enescu National University of Arts in Iași.

Ilie seated before a microphone on a concert stage, playing
In recital, Bucharest

Education

Training and scholarships

YearsStudy
2019–2024Master’s and doctoral studies, The University of Texas at AustinStudio of Adam Holzman. Teaching assistant for four years
2015–2019Bachelor of Music in Performance, Schwob School of Music, Columbus State UniversityStudio of Andrew Zohn. Woodruff Scholarship
Before 2015Octav Băncilă National College of Art, IașiClass of Marius Țîmpău, with parallel study under Daniel Dragomirescu
From age 8Popular School of Arts, Iași
YearScholarship
2021Moștenitorii României MuzicaleRadio România Muzical and Rotary Club Pipera. Shared with cellist Cornelius Zirbo
2015Woodruff ScholarshipFour years of undergraduate study at Columbus State University
EarlierMOL Foundation scholarship for young artists; Young Talents grant, Princess Margareta of Romania Foundation; START scholarships

Instruments

The guitars

2023

Martin Blackwell

Built in British Columbia. The guitar heard on the Naxos Matiegka recordings.

2017

Gernot Wagner

From the German maker, donated to Ilie by Carson McKowen.

2026

Alexandru Marian

A custom guitar from the Romanian luthier, delivered in October 2026.

Ilie plays D’Addario strings, through a partnership with the company, and uses a GuitarLift support.

For presenters

Press biographies

For programmes, press releases and broadcast. Please use the spelling Dragoș Ilie, or Dragos Ilie where diacritics are not available.

Short

Romanian guitarist Dragoș Ilie has won more than 40 prizes at international competitions, among them the Guitar Foundation of America, Koblenz and Changsha. He records for Naxos, where his complete cycle of Matiegka’s guitar sonatas began appearing in 2026, and is the stage partner of violinist Alexandru Tomescu, with whom he has made three national tours and the CD Paganini Magic, and a member of the Romanian Guitar Quartet. He studied at Columbus State University and at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was teaching assistant to Adam Holzman for four years, and is Assistant Professor at the George Enescu National University of Arts in Iași.

Long

Romanian guitarist Dragoș Ilie has won awards at more than 40 international competitions, including more than 20 first and grand prizes. His results include third prize at the 2024 Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition, second prize at the 2022 Koblenz International Guitar Competition, second prize at the 2022 Tokyo International Guitar Competition, first prize at the 2023 GCC Changsha International Guitar Festival and the Grand Prize of the 2020 New York Guitar Competition.

He records for Naxos, which released the first volume of his complete Matiegka guitar sonatas in 2026. His debut album, Guitar Delights, was recorded with Radio România Muzical. He has appeared at the Romanian Athenaeum and the George Enescu Festival, with the Transilvania State Philharmonic and both orchestras of Romanian Radio.

Since 2022 he has been the stage partner of violinist Alexandru Tomescu and the 1702 “Elder-Voicu” Stradivarius: three national Stradivarius tours, the CD Paganini Magic, and his own arrangements of Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsodies for violin and guitar, heard at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, the George Enescu Festival and the Basilica of Santa Cecilia in Rome.

In 2026 he formed the Romanian Guitar Quartet with Costin Soare, Dan Alexandru Arhire and Ioan Bănescu; their first tour, Anotimpuri, took Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and four new Romanian works to ten heritage sites. From 2021 to 2024 he played in the Austin Guitar Quartet. He has given recitals for guitar societies and concert series across the United States, from Atlanta and New Orleans to San Jose and southern Oregon.

Born in Iași, he studied at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University with Andrew Zohn and at the University of Texas at Austin with Adam Holzman, where he spent four years as Holzman’s teaching assistant. He is Assistant Professor at the George Enescu National University of Arts in Iași.