Cellist
Photo: Maren Kohl
Ilaria Brun is a cellist praised for playing of unusual candour — a concerto soloist and recitalist heard across the UK and Europe, and one half of the Brun–Hale Duo, now in its second decade.
Read the full biographyNext on stage
Fauré — Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 109
Debussy — Sonata in D minor
Poulenc — Sonata, FP 143
with Tomas Hale, piano — the Night Songs programme
The Averill Sinfonia
Elgar — Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
Sibelius — Symphony No. 5
Returning to the orchestra she once led from the front desk.
Schubert — String Quintet in C, D. 956
Ravel — Trio in A minor, with festival colleagues
The festival she founded and directs; full weekend programme online.
In the press
“Night Songs is that rare duo record on which nobody accompanies anybody: Brun and Hale play the Debussy like two people finishing each other's arguments, and the Fauré like an apology neither will make out loud.” ★★★★★
— The Chamber Review, Ruth Calloway (on Night Songs)
“Brun played the Elgar as a homecoming rather than a farewell — the Averill strings leaning towards her like a family listening to news from abroad.”
— Fermata, Douwe Merten (Elgar Cello Concerto, Sallow Hall)
“A cellist of unusual candour: nothing is generalised, nothing is for show.”
— The Listening Post
On record
Lantern Records, March 2026
Ilaria Brun, cello
Tomas Hale, piano
The duo's tenth-anniversary record: Fauré, Debussy and Poulenc, recorded close and late in a converted chapel — sonatas played the way they feel at the end of a recital rather than the beginning.
Lantern Records, October 2024
Ilaria Brun, cello
Solo cello, recorded in an empty hall in January with the heating off: the Kodály sonata, Britten's first suite, and the Dutilleux strophes — music that asks the player to hold a room with nothing in reserve.
Record of the Month — The Chamber Review
Greyline Classics, June 2019
Ilaria Brun, cello
The Averill Sinfonia
Aksel Storm, conductor
Made in her final season as the Averill's principal cello — the concerto she grew up on, with the orchestra that watched her grow into it.