To date, Julie Lyonn Lieberman has worked with tens of thousands of string students across the United States, in Canada, and abroad. The first to create a dedicated Eclectic Styles String Teacher Training in 2003 at her summer program, STRINGS WITHOUT BOUNDARIES, she has also worked with string teachers across the U.S. at state ASTA/MEA conferences.
Residencies and Workshops for over 30 years:
| The Carnegie Hall Link-Up Program | “The Academy” at Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Juilliard | Eastern String Educator Workshop at Villanova |
| Starling-Delay Symposium at Juilliard | The National String Workshop | The International String Workshop |
| State Suzuki conferences & Suzuki at Snowmass |
Crane School of Music | IAJE: International Association for Jazz Educators Conference |
| MEA: Music Educators Conferences nationwide | American String Teacher State & National conferences | ESTA: European String Teachers’ Institute in Scotland |
| The Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp | The International School for Fiddling | Fiddling Around in Georgia |
| The Lakewood Project | New York Open Center | University of Stanford Jazz Workshop |
| National Organization for Women | Madeline Island Chamber Music Camp | Royal Academy of Music in Toronto, Canada |
| National Young Audiences | Centre for Human Performance & Health in Canada | Unison Learning Center |
| Juilliard College of Music | Eastman Conservatory | Manhattan School of Music |
| McGill University | New England Conservatory | WestConn Strings Camp |
| Berklee College of Music | University of Montevallo | and many other universities as well as middle and high schools throughout America |
JULIE LYONN LIEBERMAN has helped develop the multi-style string field over the last forty+ years as a performer, clinician, author, producer, and recording artist. She is the Artistic Director for the summer program, Strings Without Boundaries: Where 21st century techniques meet tradition, creativity, and style. She is also an NS Design Performance Artist, and a D’Addario Premiere Clinician.
Julie is the author of fourteen music books, including A Festival of Violin & Fiddle Styles, The Roaring Brook Fiddler: Creative Life on the Wings of an Empath, 12 Rock Strings Lesson Plans, The Creative Band and Orchestra, The Contemporary Violinist, 12-Key Practice, How to Play Contemporary Strings, Alternative Strings: The New Curriculum, Improvising Violin, Rockin’ Out With Blues Fiddle, You Are Your Instrument, and Planet Musician. She authored the Creative Musicianship section for ASTA’s national curriculum book, and has six educational DVDs to her credit as well as over two-dozen string orchestra scores in American and world styles (Kendor and Alfred). Julie also worked on Tracy Silverman’s Strum Bowing book as well as the Bornoff Primer for the Foundation for the Advancement of String Education.
Julie has taught creative musicianship and world string styles in school residencies and teacher trainings across the United States, Europe, and Canada, as well as through organizations and institutions like American String Teachers Association, European String Teachers Association, National Orchestra Festival, National Association for Music Education, International Association of Jazz Educators, The Midwest Clinic, The Starling-Delay Symposium, Suzuki Institute, National String Workshop, International String Workshop, Django in June, The Juilliard MAP Program, National Young Audiences, the Carnegie Hall LinkUp Program, and The Academy (produced by Carnegie/Weill Hall/Juilliard). She also served on the board of advisors for Ken Burns’s 2001 Jazz documentary.
Julie Lyonn Lieberman is the recipient of the 2014 ASTA Kudos Award, over two-dozen ASCAP Plus Awards, and three American String Teachers Association’s National Citation for Leadership & Merit awards.
She has written over 55 articles for publications such as STRINGS, STRAD, Fiddler Magazine, Downbeat Magazine, School Band and Orchestra, American String Teacher Journal, and Jazz Educators Journal, and has been featured in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles and reviews. In addition, she has created seven programs for National Public Radio on jazz violin (The Talking Violin hosted by Billy Taylor, and Jazz Profiles: Jazz Violin hosted by Nancy Wilson).
In addition, she developed the creative musicianship curriculum for American String Teachers Association’s publication, Curriculum for School String Programs K-12, authored a chapter for a book by STRINGS Magazine and helped The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music develop a jazz string curriculum.
Her curriculum for her national project, The Green Anthem was implemented in part by MENC: Music Educators National Conference, reaching six million participants.
Featured Artist…
Lieberman has been featured as the primary violinist on the recording “Fiddle” that is used throughout the world by the organization “Music Together.” Homespun Tapes has issued three products featuring her as an educator: “Improvising Violin” (a series of five lessons on CD); “The Instrumentalist’s Guide To Fitness, Health, and Musicianship” (a companion DVD to her book, You Are Your Instrument); and “The Vocalist’s Guide To Fitness, Health, and Musicianship” (a companion DVD to her book, You Are Your Instrument).
Composer, Performer and Recording Artist…
Lieberman is the recipient of over thirty ASCAP awards and eight Meet the Composer awards. Her anthem for the planet, The Green Anthem, was included in MENC’s 2010 World’s Largest Concert. She has performed her original music on and off Broadway, throughout the U.S., Canada, and in Europe, and on television and radio and has five recordings of original music to her credit. She has been the composer-in-residence for three seasons at the City Center Manhattan Theatre Club “Writers in Performance” series. Her music for Alec Baldwin’s/Steve Lawrence’s production of “The Devil and Daniel Webster” aired on WNYC after premiering at City Center. Other productions included “The Don,” based on Edith Grossman’s new translation and in celebration of Don Quixote’s 400th birthday starring Mario Cantone, Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Daphne Rubin-Vega,; “Hemmingway,” starring Peter Gallagher, and “Edgar,” based on the life and writings of Edgar Allan Poe.
Lieberman’s jazz string quartet, commissioned by Manchester Music Festival, premiered to a standing ovation in 2000. She also composed and recorded the soundtrack for the Taoist exercise video Body Logos in 2002. Her music for the play The Yellow House by Leonardo Shapiro won critical acclaim in the late eighties. To date, she has fulfilled close to a dozen alternative string orchestra commissions for places like Cedar Rapids Symphony, Duluth High School (premiered at GMEA), Milwaukee School for Languages, and so on.
Ms. Lieberman’s recordings of original music featuring her voice and violin, include Empathic Connections, 1981, Arcturus, 1984, Roaring Brook Fiddler, 1991, Mixing America, 1994.
Lieberman was a guest artist on Laura Nyro’s album, Mother’s Spiritual, 1984, designing her own violin lines for the album. She has also played violin on made-for-TV films, TV commercials, the Broadway show M. Butterfly, and for numerous dance companies. Her original music was selected to be performed live at the 1984 New Music America conference in Houston, TX.
Julie Lyonn Lieberman Early History
Early History (synopsis)
Julie Lyonn Lieberman grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. Her parents, Dr. Rosilyn Wilder (d.2006), actress, educator, director, and author (d. 2006), and Ben Lieberman (d. 1999), journalist and sculptor, exposed her to dance, theater, and music lessons from age two, on. Her sister, Jeannie Deva, is a prominent vocal coach, singer, and the author of The Contemporary Vocalist. Her husband, Len Cascia, is an instrument-builder, software programmer, and plays pedal steel, guitar and piano. They married in 1998. She was exposed to American and world roots music from an early age. Her family was extremely active on the folk music scene, helping to start the Folk Society of Northern New Jersey. Her cousins booked the U.S. tour for the Boys of the Lough, and her uncle created the alternative to Tanglewood, The Music Inn, in the Berkshires.
Between the years 1962 to 1976, Lieberman studied classical violin with Samuel Applebaum, Nancy Clarke, Romuald Tecco, Stanley Richie, William Henry, and at Manhattan School of Music Prep Division. While in college at Sarah Lawrence College (1972–1976, BA) she began eight years of study off-campus with jazz pianist Sal Mosca (1974–1982). Later, she earned her MA at New York University Gallatin Division.
Parallel to her education on violin, Julie took private voice lessons and weekly performance workshops with Ray Evans Harrell, Director of the Magic Circle Repertory Company, for seven years; she also studied voice with Maitland Peters, Department Chair at Manhattan School of Music, for another seven years. Other studies include four years of Alexander Technique with Judah Kataloni, an in-depth workshop with famed Moshe Feldenkrais, composition with Dary John Mizelle and Stanley Walden, and Technologies for Creating as well as Macrostructural Analysis with Robert Fritz.
In the seventies, Ms. Lieberman was active as a fiddler on the folk music scene, playing backup for artists such as David Amram, Barbara Dane, and Lewis London, with her trio, Nightsong, as well as under her own name. She then became active as an improvising violinist in jazz, world music, and New Age music, performing with artists such as David Darling, Barbara Dane, Jim Scott, Laraaji Venus, Janet Lawson, Steve Browman, Bob Arthurs, and under her own name. She has shared the stage with colleagues such as Matt Glaser, Darol Anger, John Blake, Jr., L Shankar, Dave Balakrishnan, Christian Howes, Martin Norgaard, Matt Wilson, Richard Greene, as well as artists like Glen Velez, Steve Gorn, Susan Osborn, and has recorded with Dave Samuels, Rufus Reid, and Armen Donelian, among others.
During the eighties, Lieberman produced the First, Second, and Third American Jazz String Summits in New York City. These seminal events helped put improvised strings on the map. She presented over thirty improvising string players, such as Claude “Fiddler” Williams, Darol Anger and Dave Balakrishnan’s first installment of Turtle Island String Quartet, David Darling, John Blake, Jr., Scarlet Rivera, Vicki Horner Richards, L. Subramanium, L. Shankar, and more, helping many of these artists achieve recognition on a broader scale through coverage of the concerts by The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post, prominent radio programs like “New Sounds” with John Schaefer, host, as well as through string magazine coverage. Her first National Public radio series, The Talking Violin, premiered in 1989, and featured the history of improvisation on violin from 1925 through the late eighties. Over fifty improvising violinists were included. Ms. Lieberman also helped create and appeared in the documentary film, Improvised Violin: Four Personal Views, with Leroy Jenkins, Billy Bang, and John Blake, Jr. In the late eighties.
Lieberman’s first two books, Blues Fiddle and Improvising Violin were published in the late eighties and early nineties. In the early nineties Lieberman co-produced/hosted the radio program Hear and Now, for 4 years on WBAI. On this program, she interviewed many of the major composers of the time, airing their music. In the nineties, Lieberman was invited to create two one-hour programs titled “Jazz Violin” for National Public Radio’s award-winning series “Jazz Profiles,” hosted by Nancy Wilson. Her seminal book, You Are Your Instrument came out in 1993, followed by the rest of her titles and DVDs.
Lieberman served as the chair in 2004 for the alternative strings festival at American String Teachers Conference after helping organize the festival’s launch in 2003. She wrote and produced the DVD, “Alternative Styles in the Classroom” for ASTA a few years later. She is currently on the ASTA Curriculum Committee as creative consultant. Her national project, The Green Anthem, ran from September 2009 to April 2010 and MENC: The Music Educators National Conference ran The Green Anthem competition and included the anthem itself in the 2010 MENC World’s Largest Concert, when it was performed by 6 million students across America.
