Our Featured Instructor: Julie Kurzava

Julie Kurzava is a professional musician, vocalist, educator, and storyteller whose teaching brings music to life through deep listening, thoughtful analysis, and genuine enthusiasm. Trained in classical voice and opera, Julie earned her degree in voice and went on to perform professionally while also training as an actor and becoming a member of Actors’ Equity. Early in her career, she founded a theater company, taught drama to young performers, and developed a lasting passion for music history and narrative, elements that continue to shape her distinctive teaching style.

Julie’s classes reflect a lifelong curiosity about music in all its forms. While her formal training focused on classical repertoire, she has spent decades exploring musical theater, opera, and popular music, studying composers such as Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, and Hoagy Carmichael. Her teaching emphasizes not just what we hear, but why it works. Rather than relying solely on historical facts, Julie invites students to listen the way musicians do, breaking down style, structure, technique, and artistic choice.

In her February 12 Oasis class on Sondheim, Julie will help students understand what makes the music so compelling: identifying the specific musical gestures, patterns, and complexities that reward deeper listening. In the Great American Songbook class on April 9, she examines how timeless standards continue to resonate, comparing classic interpretations with contemporary artists and exploring why this music endures. Across all her teaching, Julie’s goal is to help students hear more clearly, listen more deeply, and connect more meaningfully with the music they love.

Julie currently serves on the music faculty at Loyola University Maryland, where she teaches undergraduate voice. Whether teaching college students or lifelong learners, she values curiosity, conversation, and shared discovery, believing that music, at its best, enriches lives by helping us listen more closely to the world around us.