Željko Ivović was born in 1984.

He started playing cello at the age of 6 in the class of prof. Zorana Prvulović. He attended the School for Music Talents at Ćuprija, in the class of prof. Relja Ćetković. He studied at the Faculty of Music Art at Belgrade in the class of prof. Relja Ćetković, Srdjan Sretenović and Dejan Božić in whose class he graduated in 2006. He completed his postgraduate studies at the “Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz – Oberschützen“, Austria, in the class of prof. Tobias Stosiek.

He has attended master classes at professors Miloš Mlejnik, Ksenija Janković, Stanislav Apolín, Stefan Popov and Tobias Stosiek.

He has attended chamber music classes of, among others, professors Herbert Kefer, Johannes Meisel and Otmar Müller who are the members of the renowned Artis Quartet from Vienna.

He improved himself with Bjorn Sjorgen (Norway), David Herrington (“Kronos Quartet”, USA), as well as with members of the string quartet “Amernet”, USA.

He was a member of the BGO (Belgrade String Orchestra) “Dušan Skovran”, Philharmonics of Banja Luka, and Festival Orchestra “KotorArt” where he was the cello section leader from 2014 to 2016. Since 2011, he has been, and still is, a member of Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra at Novi Sad. He performs, from time to time, on a temporary basis, with Belgrade Philharmonics and Montenegro Symphony Orchestra. In the season 2018/2019, he was the cello section leader in the Verdi Orchestra from Graz, Austria. Since 2022, he has been, and still is, the cello section leader at the chamber orchestra “Serafim”. In 2022, he performed with the Banat Philharmonics from Timisoara (Romania).

He has performed throughout Serbia and Montenegro, in Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, France, Italy and Greece.

Since 2011, he is a member of the string quartet “Il Belpaese”, and since 2017, he has been cooperating and performing with the violinist Igor Vasiljević, as a duo.

Since 2010, he is employed at the School for Music Talents at Ćuprija, as a professor of cello, orchestra, sheet music reading and chamber music.