About
Julia’s work draws from architecture, art, video, electronic music, science, and indie music to create experiential performances and media pieces. As a violinist she has performed worldwide, from the Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival to Tanglewood to Lincoln Center. Her more unusual performances include a full-length immersive show at the Chabot Planetarium, improvisations in an aircraft hangar, and accompanying dancers hanging from trees in Tahoe.
A Vocal Proponent of New Music
Julia has worked with composers such as Evan Ziporyn, Steve Reich, John Harbison, Hans Tutschku and Tod Machover. Currently, she is a curator for the Center for New Music in San Francisco, and she was recently in residency at the MIT’s new Center for Art, Science, and Technology. Over the past ten years, she has collaborated with San Francisco dance group, Capacitor, writing and performing numerous pieces for violin and electronics. FLOCK, their most recent collaboration, is a piece for violin and electronics by Andrew May, shot as a music video with SF Ballet dancers and directed by RJ Muna. As a K-Bow Artist, Julia represented the world’s first bluetooth bow.
Digital Design
When not playing the violin, Julia runs a digital product studio, Blacksquare. Her clients range from VC-funded startups to Fortune 500 companies, including Intel, Bank of America, News Corp, Fox, GAP, and Microsoft. She is also a co-founder of the current video company YARN, and past founder of media companies Rentometer and Moovee. Her work has been featured in Techcrunch, The Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, Reuters, US News & World Report, Fox Business, Washington Post, LifeHacker, and MOMA. She has won over 30 awards, including 4 Webbys and she serves as a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, the FWAs, and the Interactive Media Council.
Julia studied violin in Paris with Maryvonne Le Dizes, at the New England Conservatory of Music with Masuko Ushioda, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Isadore Tinkleman. She recently won the SFCM Prep Alumni of the Year Award. She holds Physics and Music degrees from MIT, winning the AMITA award for outstanding woman graduate, and was a researcher in the Media Lab Hyperinstruments Group with Tod Machover. She received her Master’s of Design with Distinction from Harvard. Julia is an advisor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Women’s Audio Mission, and she serves on the board for Capacitor.