Pianist, editor, and arts administrator Julia Furlan currently serves as the Senior Editorial Manager of the world’s leading classical music news and streaming platform, The Violin Channel. In this role, she leads a team of writers, edits all written content on the website, supervises social media/streaming coordinators, and manages 70+ international partnerships, including with institutions such as Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, Wigmore Hall, and the New England Conservatory. She also travels to international competitions and festivals to provide editorial coverage from each event.

In addition to this position, she teaches private piano lessons in New York City and online, and performs in and around New York, most recently in the International Stretto Piano Festival and the Nyack Jazz Festival.

An advocate for musicians’ health and performing arts medicine, Julia received her Master’s degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy with an emphasis on Injury Preventive Piano Technique, under pioneer Dr. Barbara Lister-Sink. Inspired by musicians who have sustained playing-related injuries, she also received the “Essentials of Performing Arts Medicine” certificate from the Performing Arts Medicine Association and teaches at the Intensive Training Workshops of the Lister-Sink Institute. In 2022, she received her Yoga Teaching Certification to further her knowledge of the body and how it relates to playing the piano. 

After studying and playing on alternatively sized keyboards with narrow piano keys (aka Stretto pianos), Julia has become a champion for smaller-handed, often female pianists, who the conventional keyboard size has disadvantaged. She has worked with the International Stretto Piano Festival since 2023 and discussed them in an appearance on Yukimi Song’s podcast “The Piano Pod.” She continues to collaborate with Stretto Piano Events and Pianists for Alternatively Sized Piano Keys to promote these instruments.

Her work in music administration has seen her serve several roles with artist management agency Primo Artists, give a guest lecture at New Jersey City University on artist promotion/social media, and advise in the Concert Artists Guild Career Bootcamp.

As a William Macdonald Scholarship recipient, Julia graduated from McGill University’s Schulich School of Music with a Bachelor’s in Piano Performance under Sara Laimon, with a minor in Music Entrepreneurship. From her first piano lessons at age 4, she has also studied with David Budway, Christine Renstrom, Michael Oelbaum, and Mark Pakman, the latter at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Program.

She has performed with flautist Hubert Laws, clarinetist David Krakauer, trumpet player Vinnie Cutro, the Trillium String Quartet, and her dad, saxophonist and composer Peter Furlan, among many others. Julia has premiered several works written by living composers Henri Colombat, Gabriel DufourLaperrière, and Drew Harris.

A top prize winner at the New York Summer Music Festival Concerto Competition and the Rondo Young Artist Competition, Julia has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Tenri Cultural Institute, Montclair State University, Maureen’s Jazz Cellar, and the Greenwich House. She has performed as a soloist for the New York Summer Music Festival, the Summit Music Festival, and the Leschetitzky Association Gifted Young People’s concert series.

In her spare time, she loves to hang out with her husband and their cat, Figgy! You can find her on a hike, at the beach, or at a concert!