Julia Biel puts it all on show, her vulnerability, her strength and an emotional landscape to touch even the hardest of hearts.  Likened by critics across the world to greats such as Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Chet Baker and Miles Davis for her instantly recognisable and smoky tones and singular approach to music, it’s arguably her song-writing that has sent her globe-trotting to perform headline shows at many of the most prestigious venues and jazz festivals in the world.  Counting the likes of Bob Dylan, Ben Watt and Jamie Cullum among her fans, in 2019 she opened for Bob Dylan at his request on the Schloßplatz stage, on the occasion of his gala concert in Stuttgart which closed the Jazzopen Festival.   

Her most recent album ‘Black and White, Vol.1’, (released in February 2020 at the onset of the global pandemic) was the start of what hinted at being a series – so titled to encapsulate both her mixed cultural identity and her self-accompanying at the piano – an album that was prompted by audiences often asking for the chance to buy an album of this nature at merch tables wherever she has performed, her regular 4-piece line-up concerts often featuring one or two songs performed entirely alone.  The solo piano and voice, and classic ‘singer-songwriter’ sound, brings listeners back to the source – just Julia singing at the piano ‘taking no prisoners’ whether over meditative and immersive piano soundscapes or on more groove-led songs – a proposition that has in its very existence seemed to offer the gentlest of challenges to cultural stereotypes in music.  

Fast forward to 2022 and there’s been a lot of activity behind the scenes to bring listeners the next instalments in Julia’s self-taught and award-winning artistic evolution in music, as a vocalist, piano player, songwriter and producer.  New albums are on the way, stay tuned..