Julia Kay Jamieson is an energetic performer, dedicated teacher, composer and award-winning harpist. A passionate advocate for new music, she is the principal harpist of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, has given numerous world premiere performances and has performed in SEAMUS (Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States) conferences. Julia has been a featured concert artist, clinician and composer for numerous events including the Canadian International Sumer Harp Institute, Festival de Cuerdas at the Conservatory of Music in Puerto Rico, the annual Harp Day in Eugene, Oregon, and the Illinois Summer harp class. She has been commissioned to write several harp ensemble pieces which have been performed internationally including Sea, Animal Parade, and bot.ga. As a founding member of the quartet, The HarpCore 4, Julia has innovatively arranged and performed popular music throughout the U.S. including a performance in the 2015 Midwest Harp Festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
As a professional harpist, she won First Prize in the 2002 American String Teachers Association (ASTA) National Biennial Solo Competition. Julia was the winner of the University of Illinois School of Music Concerto Competition Finals in 2008 and has been a soloist with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra (2010) and the Danville Symphony Orchestra (2009 and 2018). Julia studied with Jocelyn Chang in Cleveland for over a decade, Susann McDonald at Indiana University (BM), and Ann Yeung at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (MM) where she served as the teaching assistant in harp. During her tenure as teaching assistant, she was awarded the highest teaching honor at the University of Illinois: the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2009).
Julia’s interest in harp pedagogy and composition has led her to writing teaching materials including The Young at Harp – a method/solo book for beginning harpists, giving several workshops and master classes for harpists and composers and writing articles for the American Harp Journal. During the summer of 2015 Julia gave fearless improv workshops for the American Harp Society Summer Institute in Logan, Utah. In 2018 she was a co-director of a youth harp ensemble at the American Harp Society National Conference in Redlands, CA, where her pice Epic Quest was premiered. Julia serves the American Harp Society as Chair of both the Music Education Auditions and Evaluations Committee and the Young Composers Project.
Education
B.M. Harp, Indiana University
M.M. Harp, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign