MORE ABOUT JULI

Dedication Across Performance and Pedagogy

Julianna Nickel is a musician, teacher, and consultant. For fourteen years, Juli was the Adjunct Professor of Flute at George Mason University. At Mason, she worked a full studio of flutists, conducted the flute choir, and taught career skills class. JNC (Juli Nickel Consulting), allows Juli to work with musicians as they apply and audition to music schools.

Ms. Nickel loves performing as a chamber musician, an orchestral player, and as a soloist. Some of her favorite chamber music venues have been the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, the National Institute of Health, the Alden Theater, historic Mount Vernon, Salisbury College, and Georgetown University. As an orchestral player, she is the principal flutist with the American Festival Pops Orchestra, and substitutes with the Washington National Opera, the National Philharmonic, Alexandria Symphony, the Maryland Symphony, and the American Pops Orchestra. Since moving to the DC area in 2008, Julianna has performed as a soloist with the American Festival Pops Orchestra, the George Mason University Symphony Orchestra, the George Mason University Wind Ensemble, and the Landon Symphonette.

During the pandemic, Ms. Nickel and her family turned their driveway into a concert venue, presenting seven outdoor concerts that were each attended by a hundred or more people. Colleagues from across the region and young musicians, including the Mason flute studio, performed on these events between May 2020 and May 2021.

Ms. Nickel’s professional performing career began in college. Julianna was the principal flutist and personnel manager of the Gardner Museum Orchestra. She routinely played with the Boston Philharmonic and the Vermont Symphony. Ms. Nickel’s first job after college was as the principal flutist of the Evansville Philharmonic. Later, after moving to Dallas in 1998, she became the principal flutist of both the Plano and Irving Symphony Orchestras. During the summer, she was the piccolo player for the Durango Music Festival. Julianna greatly enjoyed performing as a substitute with many groups including the National Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Florida Orchestra, and the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra.

Her teaching career began in Boston area schools and was soon followed by a teaching position as the flute professor for the University of Evansville, Indiana. Over the years, she particularly enjoyed the teaching experiences of summer programs at the Kinhaven Music School (Weston, Vermont), and the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival (South Africa). Until recently, she was the Director of the Flute Academy for Mason Community Arts, which is now part of the program’s larger summer band intensive. Ms. Nickel routinely performs at presents at the conventions for the National Flute Association and the Washington Flute Society.Like many of her peers, Julianna adjudicates competitions of all types and presents a wide variety of masterclasses for different events.

Ms. Nickel’s students are highly successful in school, local and national competitions. Studio members have gone on the graduate school at the New England Conservatory of Music, the Eastman School of Music, the Peabody Institute of Music, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of North Texas, the University of Southern California, the University of Southern California, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her education majors are teaching across the country.

Julianna attended the New England Conservatory Music where she received both her Bachelors and Masters of Music in Performance. Her teachers were Paula Robison, Fenwick Smith, and Leone Buyse. Prior to transferring to NEC, she attended the University of North Texas for two years studying with Jaqueline Hofto.  Ms. Nickel won summer fellowships with Tanglewood, the National Repertory Orchestra, and two summers each with the National Orchestra Institute and the Aspen Music Festival. At the age of seventeen, she had the honor of soloing with the AMF Chamber Orchestra.

Julianna is an advocated for the health of musicians. She developed focal dystonia while in her early 30’s, which almost terminated her musical career. Juli could not play her flute at all but searched for a correct diagnosis and proper information for almost two years. Finally finding the right neurologist in Houston, TX, she started a regime of Botox injections in her left arm that allowed her to return to playing at a high level. Always in search of an actual cure for all who suffer from the rare neurological condition, Julianna found, and was accepted into, a clinical trial at the National Institute of Health. In 2018, she became the first participant in the trial. The surgery was successful, and Julianna’s left hand moves today on the flute due to an electrode in her brain connected to a battery in her chest. She graduated from the five year trial in June 2023.  An advocate for the health of musicians, Julianna spends many hours talking to injured musicians, including those with focal dystonia. Her journey has increased her knowledge of musicians’ injuries and mindsets when facing trauma. 

Ms. Nickel grew up in Austin, TX where she studied with the amazing Megan Meisenbach. While in high school, she soloed with the San Antonio Symphony and the Central Texas Orchestra.

Julianna is married to James Nickel, a French Horn player with the National Symphony Orchestra, and is the proud mom of two amazing young people.