Julia Vera
About
Julia Vera was born in Hamburg, she completed her studies from 1995-2005 in piano education and piano performance with Prof.Seebass and Prof. Seibert in the University of Arts in Bremen.
Meanwhile she accompanied the clarinet-class of Prof. Thomas and took part in several master-classes and Piano-Festivals, like Beethoven-Project Bayreuth or Chopin-Project Bremen.
Also she completed her classical studies with accompaniment of vocalists and chamber-music like String-Quartett.
From 2010 she started a further education in Jazz, Pop and Band-Arrangement as a keyboarder and band-leader, she played also Barpiano in hotels in Bremen, like Park-Hotel afm.
Diverse projects followed, like Tango Argentino, Latin/Salsa-Piano with vocals and the Funk & Soul Band „Barefoot-Soul-Affairs“ with horn section.
The Project in March 2020 was a Symphonic-Dream Theater-Cover-Project with a metal-band and the symphony-Orchestra Delmenhorst where she played sophisticated Synthesizer-Compositions from J.Rudess.
Artist in residence – Republic of Czechia 2023
My youngest travel-experience in summer 2023 was the Republic of Czechia. Following a warm-hearted and inspiring invitation to the Border of Czech Republic, to stay the summer in an old farmers house in the small town of Travnic, about one hour north of Prague, I had the opportunity to hike through beautiful wild Forrests and stay with my instruments and the two dogs to compose and study the music of Bartok and Smetana and the classic piano and the Moog synths in Presence of good friends.
Back home in Bremen I used the rest of the summer days to produce my first small video. I still have to learn a lot about film and sound technology, but here’s my first try.
Inspired by this beautiful place I discovered in Cvikov- the Krizovy vrch-mountain- where 14 small capells are build going up a little mountain with 100-years-old trees in a row. I tried to catch this dream like-mood and also the spirituality of this place of pilgrimage in my music and the pictures in my video , so I combined the Moog-grandmother-synths and the classic piano-sound with the footage I took in these inspiring days.
Development 2022
In March 2020 I started to go back to my roots in music-classical piano-like Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Poulenc, Bartok, Cage which helped me master this lonely time. I started to prepare my piano because of a piece of music from John Cage, which I had to play in my exams. I was looking for new ways of expression in sound and possibilities to create new musical landscapes. This became possible because of a generous donation from Klavierhaus Helmich in winter of 2020, a small piccolo-acustic-piano!
Suddenly I was able to transport a real acoustic piano to places outside the studio or rehearsal-room and play under the open sky. I started to look for sounds outside, in nature, to record and use in my own compositions. I have not even started to find all the options which are obviously already in front of my ears. Fascinated from the opportunities of technology, an analog synthesizer and a loop station build up my equipment and helped me to sneak in analog sound modulation and music-production.
Where it is going to… curious, searching for expression, touching, diverse, in my own language, I am again in touch with musical spheres I still have to learn about and explore, music which wants to be discovered, worked with, centered and still stay free. It comes from intuitional and emotional inspiration, it comes from nature and from technics combined with the years of musical experiences.
In my first video, which was kindly sponsored from the GVL (Gesellschaft für Leistungsverwertung) in times of Corona – I try to find a connection running from the roots from J.S.Bach to romantic F.Poulenc (1931) over to prepared Piano from J.Cage (1939) into my own sound experience with Headrush Looper and MoogSynthezier. I wanted to express my state of mind, capturing the experience of isolation and social limitations in these times. For me as an artist and musician, it’s a maiden voyage. Please join me.