ILÆY

**İlay Bal** (born 4th July 1989), better known under her stage name **ILÆY**, is a Turkish singer-songwriter, producer and voice-over artist, currently based in Prague. She represented the Czech Republic at The Origin Song Contest 08 in Brussels, Belgium.

## Early life

İlay Bal was born on 4th July 1989 in Ankara, Turkey. Ever since she was a little kid, she has been interested in arts, having experimented with different forms of singing, writing, acting and drawing.

## Career

### Musical career

#### Early years

İlay started singing in front of a big audience at the age of 6. She has performed in various venues and festivals around the world, and has won several singing competitions.

In her high school years, ILÆY primarily performed in the rock genre. Later she switched to soul, funk and R&B. While in college, she discovered jazz music. She entered the IKSV Young Jazz Competition and won the festival twice and performed at the prestigious Istanbul Jazz Festival for 3 years.

#### 2011-2015: "Mikado"

In 2011 ILÆY, alongside Emre Uyar, İsmail Cem Taşkın, Ahmet Demirkol, Ege Cengiz and Eren Dönmez formed the group "Mikado" in the city of Istanbul. Together they released one album called "If You Pull", which was published in 2015. It contained 7 songs.

#### 2019-present: Solo career and The Origin Song Contest

In early September 2019, İlay released her debut single as a solo artist, entitled "Sin". Unlike her releases with the band "Mikado", which were in English, the song was entirely in Turkish. In January 2020, she released another single called "Giderayak". A video accompanying the song was published on 9th March the same year.

On 12th February 2020, ILÆY was announced as one of the 11 entrants in Song for the Origin 03, the Czech national final for The Origin Song Contest 08. She competed with her song "Giderayak". On 28th March 2020, she was declared the winner of the selection with 134 points, therefore winning the rights to represent the Czech Republic in Brussels.

### Acting career

As a dedicated performer, İlay has also practiced Method Acting, having starred in classic and modern plays, such as Bernard Marie Coltes's *Roberto Zucco*, Shakespeare’s *Romeo and Juliet*, Neil Simon and Chekov’s *Good Doctor* and Jean Genet’s *The Maids*. In addition to her acting, she also took part as Assistant Director, Musical Director and Singing Coach in the productions.

She received maximum scholarships from the New York Film Academy and American Musical and Dramatic Academy for Musical Theatre Programs.

ILÆY has also provided voice-overs for Disney, Hasbro, DreamWorks and Netflix productions such as *Ice Age: Collision Course*, *Trolls*, *Shrek Short Movies*, and *Crazy Ex-Girlfriend*.

## Personal life

İlay has one sibling - a brother.

She graduated the Koç University in business administration in 2012. On 6th September 2014 she married Gence Gümgüm Arslan. Together they moved to Prague in the beginning of October 2015. Prior to that, she has also lived in Istanbul and Berlin.

ILÆY is fluent in Turkish and English, and can speak conversational Czech, French and German.

## Discography

### As a solo singer

#### Singles

* "Sin" (2019)
* "Giderayak" (2020)

## See also

* Czech Republic
* The Origin Song Contest 08