Julie Gunn

About Julie

Julie Gunn is a pianist, educator, and music director who has performed on many of the world’s most prestigious recital series, including the Aspen Festival, Boston’s Celebrity Series, Brussel’s La Monnaie, the Carnegie Hall Pure Voice Series, the Cincinnati Chamber Music Society, the Dallas Opera, Lincoln Center Great Performers, Manhattan’s Café Carlyle, the Metropolitan Opera Summerstage, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, the Sydney Opera House, Washington National Opera, the 92nd Street Y, and the United States Supreme Court.

As Co-Director of the Lyric Theatre program at the University of Illinois, she produces three mainstage operas or musical theatre works a year at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. A faculty member at the School of Music, she enjoys teaching singers, pianists, chamber musicians, and songwriters, as well as conducting new works and musical theatre. She has given master classes at universities and young artists’ programs all over the United States and has enjoyed tenures as artist-in-residence at Cincinnati Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, and Ontario’s Highlands Opera Studio. She is the founder of the Illinois School of Music Academy, a program for talented pre-college chamber musicians and composers.

Dr. Gunn enjoys working at the intersection of different disciplines and collaborates with artists in the fields of theatre, dance, and design whenever possible. She is committed to new works and in recent seasons has been part of several world premieres, as a co-producer, a pianist, or as a conductor. Last year, Nathan and Julie Gunn launched their new production company, Shot in the Dark Productions Inc, which made its debut at the Krannert Center with Nathan and Julie Gunn and friends: An Evening on Broadway.

A member of ASCAP, Dr. Gunn is the author of many arrangements of songs for chamber groups and orchestras. Her arrangements have been heard at Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center, the DeBartolo Center, Ithaca College, Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Kennedy Center, the Krannert Center, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, and in Sun Valley, Idaho.