A native of Moscow, Julia Zilberquit was born into a family of musicians and began to play the piano at the age of four. She graduated from Moscow's Gnesin School of Music and immigrated with her family to the United States in 1989. She has received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School where she was a scholarship student of Bella Davidovich.
Ms. Zilberquit's recent highlights include her orchestral debut at Carnegie Hall with the Moscow Virtuosi under Vladimir Spivakov performing Shostakovich's Concertino in A minor (arranged for piano and chamber orchestra by Ms. Zilberquit), and her extensive tour with Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi in the United States, Canada and Israel.
She has performed with The Brooklyn Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the London-based New European Strings Orchestra, Deutsche Symphony Orchestra, Berlin, Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, Russian State Orchestra, Bolshoi Orchestra, Musica Viva, St. Petersburg Camerata Orchestra, Capella Symphony of St. Petersburg, Russian Philharmonia, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonietta Cracovia, and the Sinfonia Varsovia. As recitalist, Ms. Zilberquit has been the Featured Artist at Weill Recital Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, and Merkin Concert Hall, New York.
Her latest CD, released in March 2000, features music of Prokofiev, Shostakovitch and Slonimsky with the Bolshoi Orchestra on Harmonia Mundi/Le Chant du Monde label in Paris. Her recording of the Shostakovich's Concertino with the Moscow Virtuosi and Vladimir Spivakov was released in 1997 on the MusicMasters Classics/BMG label. The New York Times has praised both compact discs.
In 1999 she has performed her debut with Constantine Orbelyan and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in a world premiere of Sergei Slonimsky's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. This work was dedicated to Ms. Zilberquit.
In 1998 Ms. Zilberquit has received high praise for her debut with the Deutsche Symphony Orchestra at the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin performing Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor under Maestro Zsolt Hamar where the "Tagesspiegel" has called her "the romantic poetess of the piano".
She participated at major international music festivals such as the Seattle International Music Festival; Beethoven Festival, Vienna; International Music Festival Klangbogen, Vienna; International Music Festival, Colmar, France; Festival in St. Petersburg (Valery Gergiev's "The Stars of White Nights"); Festival in Moscow (Sviatoslav Richter's "December Nights"); Festival "the Palaces of St. Petersburg"; and the "Penderecki Fesitval", Krakow, Poland. She has been the Featured Artist on WQXR NewYork, RadioFrance Paris and Deutschland Radio Berlin.
As First Prize Winner of the 1994 Vienna International Music Competition, she has been the soloist of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra at the Vienna Konzerthaus and Linz Bruckner Haus. She has also appeared with the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra under the baton of Sir Yehudi Menuhin in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 at the prestigious Beethoven Festival in Vienna, and gave solo recitals at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Palace and the Boesendorfer Hall where her success resulted in return engagements.