Biography

Julia Hwang gave her professional solo debut with the English National Baroque Chamber Orchestra at the age of nine, performing Bach’s Concerto in A minor. In the same year, she performed for legendary violinist Ivry Gitlis in London and was invited to open the Proms on the Close for Jose Carreras. She recorded two CDs at the ages of eleven and twelve, and, also at the age of twelve, performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Julia has been a veteran of the concert stage for many years and her numerous solo appearances with orchestras internationally have led to an ever-increasing schedule of concerts both in the UK and abroad. Recent performances have included a tour of the Korngold concerto with conductor Nicholas Daniel, performing the Bruch concerto for television in Korea, and numerous recitals across UK including St Martin in the Fields and Bristol.

In 2015, she was appointed to be a cultural ambassador for the BRACE Alzheimer’s Research, alongside broadcasters Jonathan Dimbleby and Sir Martyn Lewis. She also became a Concordia Foundation Artist in 2017, which led to many public performances in London’s main concert halls, and in hospitals and care centres. Other public and charity performances have included performing at the 2012 Violins of Hope music festival in North Carolina, USA, with Shlomo Mintz; a collaboration in Israel with Vadim Gluzman; charity concerts at Highgrove to raise funds for The Prince’s Trust alongside Julian Lloyd-Webber; and innumerable further concerts to raise money for, among others, The Alzheimer’s Society, the NSPCC and MacMillan Cancer Relief.

Julia has appeared many times on live television and radio through the BBC and ITV and, in 2012, she was featured in a BBC4 documentary about the nation’s favourite composition ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Her performance of this work was specifically chosen by the BBC to represent this timeless classic of the great British composer, and the documentary has been re-broadcast on many occasions due to popular demand. Her latest CD, recorded with Signum Classics, features Grieg, Lutoslawski, Wieniawski and Vaughan Williams, which she performed in live sessions of BBC In Tune and Classic FM respectively, and was reviewed by Gramophone as displaying a “model of expressive purity”.

Julia completed her undergraduate degree at St John’s College, Cambridge, graduating with the 2017 Larmor Award. She began her violin studies at the age of seven with Richard Crabtree at Clifton College, and currently studies with Itzhak Rashkovsky in London. Having been offered a full scholarship from the Royal College of Music, she is pursuing postgraduate studies as an Ian Evans Lombe Scholar, also supported by awards won from the Drake Calleja Trust and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. She is the winner of the 2018 Hattori Foundation Senior Award.

She plays on a Peter Guarnerius of Mantua violin c.1698, on generous loan from the Alderson Trust.

Musicians’ Company Prize: Concordia 2019

Photograph: Estro Studio

Page Updated: Nov 2019