Pianist Julia Hamos combines her American and Hungarian roots with an adventurous spirit to explore the essence of repertoire ranging from Bach to composers living today. A solo and chamber musician, she has evolved with the tradition of Hungarian classical music training while finding common ground with her contemporaries. Instinctive artistic expression, a forward-thinking attitude, a joyful physical flexibility at the instrument, and an unyielding fascination with the music she plays makes her an artist to watch.
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London with Christopher Elton and the Mannes College of Music in New York with Richard Goode, Julia studied with Sir András Schiff at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin and studied at the Kronberg Academy where her studies were generously supported by the Henle Foundation. During her studies she also worked with Daniel Barenboim, including in a series of filmed masterclasses on Beethoven solo piano and string sonatas. She also delved into György Kurtág’s 8 Pieces, Op. 3 together with the composer at the Budapest Music Center.
Julia is in international demand as a soloist and chamber musician. She performs at the Pierre-Boulez Saal, Berlin, the Wigmore Hall, London, as well as in New York at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Liszt Academy in Budapest and other concert halls in Europe and overseas. She has given recitals and chamber music performances at the Krzyzowa Festival in Kreisau, Poland as well as at the Trasimeno Music Festival in Italy, at Spoleto Festival in South Carolina, at the Prussia Cove Festival in Cornwall, as part of the Verbier Festival Academy, at the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival in North Carolina, at the contemporary music festival Nouveaux Horizons in Aix-en-Provence, at the Moab Festival in Utah, at the Kneisel Hall Festival in Maine, at the Ravinia Steans Institute in Illinois, and at Kronberg’s annual September festival and its Chamber Music Connects the World festival in collaboration with Tabea Zimmermann and Christian Tetzlaff. She is the winner of the Sterndale Bennett Prize for Romantic Music at the Royal Academy of Music and the Fidelman Prize for Contemporary Music from the Mannes School of Music in New York and won the Grand Prix of the International Virtuoso Competition in New York City. She is also the winner of the Durini Prize for outstanding talent awarded in Milan in the spring of 2024. She has been featured on BBC Radio 3, Deutschlandfunk, and Bartók Rádió, and profiled in Gramophone magazine as “One to Watch” as well as in Concerti magazine among other publications.
At the invitation of Sir András Schiff, she appeared in the Building Bridges series of concerts throughout Europe in the 2022/23 season and beyond. Notable recent recital and chamber music appearances include performances with the National Radio Orchestra (NOSPR) in Katowice, Poland, at the Wigmore Hall, at Beethoven Haus Bonn, at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall with Tabea Zimmermann and members of the Kronberg Academy, at the Magyar Zene Ház and MÜPA in Budapest, at the Stadtcasino Basel, at the Köln Philharmonie, at the Luxembourg Philharmonie, and at Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle. She played the Ligeti Piano Concerto in Berlin’s Boulez Saal with the Boulez Ensemble and Matthias Pintscher, as well as at the Spoleto Festival where she also performed with the Castalian Quartet. She recently completed a recording of the Mozart Concerti with Howard Griffiths and the Camerata Schweiz for Alpha Classics. Julia signed with record label naïve Records in 2024 to produce a series of solo recordings within the next five years, the first of which is set for release on June 6. She made her recital debut at the Pierre Boulez Saal, followed by Boulez’s Sur Incises with Matthias Pintscher, in March 2025. Upcoming engagements include Berg’s Chamber Concerto at St. John’s Waterloo in London with Leonard Elschenbroich, a recital at the Lockenhaus Festival, her U.S. debut in the Hayes Piano Series in Washington, D.C. presented by Washington Performing Arts, at the Lucerne Festival, with Mozart Concerto K. 482 and the MÁV Orchestra in the Grosser Saal of the Salzburg Mozarteum, at the Pierre Boulez Saal’s Mendelssohn Festival, and in solo recital combined with four-hands works with Sir András Schiff at Kronberg’s Casals forum and in Milan’s Società del Quartetto series. Julia also currently serves as the assistant to Sir András Schiff in his program for young pianists at the Kronberg Academy.