Julia Schilz began her violin studies with Kimberly Meier-Sims and Stephen Sims at CIM’s Sato Center for Suzuki Studies. She is a current graduate student at the Juilliard School, after completing her undergraduate studies at Juilliard with Donald Weilerstein and Catherine Cho.

Julia is passionate about the symphonic repertoire, as evidenced by her engagement in a breadth of orchestral experiences. She appeared with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on their 2025 USA tour, and served as concertmaster of the 2025 Kyoto Festival. She spent the 2022-2023 year under full-time contract as a member of the Houston Symphony’s first violin section. Following a substitute audition, Julia frequently performed with the Houston Symphony throughout their 2021-2022 season. In the spring of 2022, Julia served as concertmaster for the Rice production of Don Giovanni, as well as for the opening gala of Rice’s new opera building. Julia served as concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra on their European Tour (featuring performances at Vienna’s Musikverein, St. Florian’s Abbey, and Bratislava Reduta Concert Hall under the batons of Vinay Parameswaran and Franz Welser-Möst). She performed as a member of Carnegie Hall’s New York String Orchestra Seminar.

As a soloist, Julia won Grand Prize at the 2025 Klein Competition. She has also performed in Severance Hall with the Cleveland Pops and Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra as a concerto competition winner. She also appeared with the Lakeland Civic Orchestra as a concerto winner in their junior and senior divisions. She performed with CIM Orchestra as winner of their pre-college concerto competition. She won first prize in the 2019 Ohio MTNA senior string division, and was the recipient of The Cleveland Orchestra Alice B. Weeks Memorial Scholarship award. She has performed in masterclasses given by Christian Tetzlaff, James Ehnes, Paul Kantor, David Bowlin, and members of the Cleveland, Emerson, Cavani, and Miami quartets.

Julia believes her chamber music background played a significant role in shaping the musician she is today. Her quartet performed Meredith Monk’s Stringsongs at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in the spring of 2025. She participated in Cleveland Institute of Music pre-college chamber performances for ten years under the tutelage of Peter Salaff and the Cavani Quartet, as well as the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra Advanced Performance Seminar. She attended the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival for two summers, and the Heifetz International Music Institute for three. Julia is also appreciative of the power of chamber music to connect people and communities. In 2018, she traveled to Kolkata, India as an intern with Kolkata Classics, a Secretary of State Award-winning NGO which seeks to use music as a vehicle for social service and advocacy.

Julia is grateful to all her mentors for their musical wisdom. With each performance, she strives to honor the honesty, elegance, and visceral joy of their musicianship. Her past musical influences include Jaime Laredo, the late Jan Sloman, William Preucil, Kathleen Winkler and Cho-Liang Lin.