Photo: Dale Rothenberg (Front Page Photo: Jonghyuk Lee)
As a shy bespectacled child, Julia Chen learned to rely on music to express her personality and connect with others in ways she couldn’t with words. Raised in Brooklyn by parents from Poland and China, she grew up learning music by ear before getting her Bachelors in Jazz Piano Performance and a Bachelors in Psychology from the Oberlin College and Conservatory in Ohio. Her previous teachers include Marco Benevento, Roberta Piket, Billy Hart and Dan Wall. She now leads her own quartet, which performs her original compositions regularly in New York City venues such as Rockwood, the Bitter End, Nublu, and Kitano. Her music has been described as “if Jazz ate a full plate of Baroque Classical music sprinkled with Brazilian Choros and a bit of R&B and then washed it down with some Pop.” Her first EP, “Silver Spoons,” was released in October of 2018 and is named after one of the many beautiful houseplants that fills Julia’s apartment. In April 2020, her trio “Unspooling” released a self-titled album of their original compositions and collaborative works.
Teaching:
Julia has ten years of experience teaching piano and music lessons to both children and adults. She teaches privately as well as through Soyulla Artists and the Williamsburg Music Studio. She encourages her students to learn music in multiple genres, and to bring in songs or pieces of their own choosing when possible. During lessons she emphasizes improvisation, basic theory knowledge, and ear training. Above all, she attempts to give students music that challenges and excites them, and to help students find a connection to music both within and outside of their lessons.
About the 2018 “Silver Spoons” EP
Julia met bassist Daniel Stein and drummer Peter Manheim at college in small town Oberlin, Ohio. As fate would have it, the trio all found themselves in New York several years after college and resumed playing together after a long and lonely hiatus. Julia’s debut EP “Silver Spoons” was born in the wee hours of a cold February morning at Figure 8 Studios in Brooklyn, birth pangs eased by coffee and brownies from Dan’s local food co-op.
To explain some song titles: the Madagascar-native succulent Kalanchoe Bracteata (also known as Silver Spoons) is one of many beautiful houseplants that fill Julia's apartment. "A Pox on Both Your Houses" is a famous line from Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet', and the song's melody was written on top of a drum beat created by Nathan Friedman, another Oberlin graduate. "A Bicycle Needs a Woman Like a Fish Needs a Man" is a nonsensical rearrangement of a feminist slogan coined by Irina Dunn but often incorrectly attributed to Gloria Steinem. "No Cigar" is close.
About the 2020 “Unspooling” Album
Unspooling is a collaboration between Julia Chen (piano and Rhodes), Matt Adomeit (acoustic bass), and Nate Friedman (drums and loops).
Unspooling released their long-overdue first album in April 2020, more than 11 years after meeting in Oberlin, Ohio. The trio has experienced long honeymoon phases of playing together every day, as well as years of long-distance separation. “Unspooling”, their self-titled album recorded in Lubrza, Poland, explores both the familiarity and the space between its members. Some pieces were composed separately, some, like the title track, were composed or improvised together in the same room, and others, like "Bad Morning", were layered collaborations with different sections by different authors. The album draws on elements of jazz, folk, rock, electronic, and classical music, as the trio explores their musical personalities both within and independent from the group.