Originally from: Nottingham, England
Now reside in: Kalamazoo, MI
Age: 36
Birthday: September 25
How did you get started? Violin at age 4, which apparently didn’t go so well…so then cello at age 7.
How long have you performed with ROCO? Since the beginning.
What are you listening to on your iPod? Grizzly Bear, Hagen String Quartet, Jordi Savall, Radiohead and music for the upcoming ROCO concert.
Personal info: Married to Ab for 6 years.
Interests outside music: Travel whenever possible, gym, yoga, art museums, volunteer work for a local arts organization, reading (at the moment, Love in the Time of Cholera), cooking and watching foreign films, particularly French (my all time favorite being Tous les matin du monde).
Education: BMus, Royal College of Music, London (UK); MMus, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana; Fellowship at the New World Symphony, Miami Beach
Bio: English cellist Julia Cleworth came to the United States in 1998 to attend the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where she was teaching assistant to Suren Bagratuni. Previously, she was a student of Anna Shuttleworth at the Royal College of Music in London, and also participated in master classes with William Pleeth and Steven Isserlis. While studying at the Royal College of Music, Julia was also a member of the Britten-Pears Orchestra, Aldeburgh, and in 1998 received a scholarship to the Britten-Pears International Chamber Music Festival.
As a member of the New World Symphony from 2000 to 2003, she studied the major orchestral repertoire under the guidance of music director Michael Tilson Thomas and guest conductors Yan Pascal Tortelier, Donald Runnicles, and Roberto Abbado, to name a few, and frequently appeared on the New World Symphony chamber music series.
Still an active chamber musician, she had the rare privilege of traveling to Mumbai, India in December 2000 to take part in Sangat, a chamber music festival hosted by the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation. Julia has also performed at the Grand Teton Music Festival, Sunflower Music Festival, with the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway, Florida Philharmonic, San Antonio Symphony and in Houston with the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, Musiqa and Foundation for Modern Music. She remains committed to educating young musicians through private instruction and serves on the summer faculty of the American Festival for the Arts.
In September 2008, Julia left Houston to follow her husband, violist Ab Sengupta, to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he is the newly appointed artistic director/CEO of Fontana Chamber Arts. In addition to appearing as a guest artist on the Fontana Chamber Arts series, she is pursuing a freelance career and has appeared with the Kalamazoo Symphony and the Bach Festival.
Julia holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Royal College of Music, where she was the recipient of the Helen Just Prize and the Lesley Alexander Prize.
