Julia Bal’s international piano and composition career began when, as a laureate of the Ibla Grand Prize competition, she performed her own piano transcriptions at Carnegie Hall in 2009. Combining her own compositions and standard repertoire, she has performed in Serbia, America, England, Japan, Italy, Poland, Greece, Hungary, Croatia, Israel, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia. She has received many awards for her transcriptions of 12 Etudes by Brazilian composer E. Vila-Lobos. The president of Brazil awarded her the prestigious Rio Branco Order in 2018 for her contribution to diplomatic relations between Serbia and Brazil. Among her awards is the Music Classic for the best music publication in Serbia in 2013 (published by AGV under the auspices of the Embassy of Brazil), which was later archived in Villa Lobos Museum in Rio de Janeiro. She participated and won awards at competitions in Bradshaw & Buono (New York), Petar Konjović (Belgrade), Yamaha (Novi Sad), Victoria Caffa Righetti (Italy), Tansmann (Łód), TIM (Paris), and other places. She performed as a member of groups Bassion Amoros, J’Haz Klezmorim, 5+, as well as in a piano duo with Jelena Bajić. Her compositions for various ensembles have been performed in Serbia, Austria (Vienna, Salzburg – Mozarteum), Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Romania. Radio Television Novi Sad produced the documentary Etude dedicated to her artistic work. She was educated by prof. Kemal Gekić, Biljana Dabić, Jokut Mihailović and Biljana Gorunović, and is currently studying for a doctorate in piano with prof. Dubravka Jovićić. She worked as a teacher and associate at the Josip Slavenski music school, and since 2011 she has been teaching at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad. She was a member of the jury at international competitions together with Marcel Abad and Alexei Sokolov. She began collaborating with Hashira in 1998, first as a member of the choir, and later became a permanent collaborative pianist, as well as the author of a series of compositions and arrangements dedicated to this choir. Read/find more about Julija here.
