Iliriana Gjoni is a pianist from Ulqin, Montenegro. She is a graduate of the University of Music Karlsruhe, Germany, where she earned her two master’s degrees in piano and chamber music with the highest honors. She is the winner of many prizes at musical competitions such as multiple Golden Lyras at the national competitions in Montenegro, first prize and “Beethoven” special prize at the EPTA competition in Albania, and first prize at the International Piano Competition in Guardiagrele, Italy. Iliriana has studied with Boris Kraljevic and Lidija Skender in Montenegro, Nora Çashku in Tirana, Lucia Passaglia in Italy, and Michael Uhde and Markus Stange in Karlsruhe. After graduation, she received a scholarship from the Italian government to study for her master’s at the “Luisa D’Annunzio” Conservatory in Pescara. Parallel to her studies, she also started teaching and her pupils are winners of national German competitions. Iliriana is also often invited as a jury member at competitions for young musicians in Germany. In June 2015 she performed in front of 40.000 people at the manifestation “300 years Karlsruhe”. In 2016 she co-founded and regularly performed at the International Festival of Classical Music “Belcanto Dolcinio” in Ulqin. In 2018 she made her debut at Symphony Space in New York. Most recently she was part of the Music Diplomacy Fellowship of the US Department of State program, OneBeat. Since 2019 Iliriana has resided in Belgium, where she earned her MA in European Studies from KU Leuven with distinction in 2020. She is a political analyst at the renowned Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (center in Brussels), one of the world’s leading think tanks. In her role, she focuses on EU enlargement and Western Balkan politics. Priorly, she worked at the European Parliament and KU Leuven.