The German-Japanese mezzo-soprano Julia Kurig Yazaki (b. 2003) grew up alternately in Freiburg im Breisgau and Chigasaki.

Since October 2022 she has been studying for a Bachelor's degree with Prof. Lioba Braun at the Cologne University of Music and Dance.

She has received scholarships from the Hans and Eugenia Jütting Foundation in Stendal and the Richard Wagner Association. She won the Joanna & Gene Farber Young Talent-Prize of the 7th International Haydn Competition for Classical Lied and Aria in 2025 and is prizewinner of the Lions Club Music Prize in Karlsruhe 2022.

In 2024, together with pianist Sofi Simeonidis, she won the prize of the Vrienden van het Lied Audition and has given many song recitals in the Netherlands as part of this award.

She has already sung at several festivals, for example at the Internationaal lied festival Zeist, the Festival Internacional de Música Clásica de Cáceres (FIM’Cc) or at the 'Klänge der Stadt' festival in Bergisch Gladbach.

This year, she will perform with viola da gamba player and cellist Amarilis Dueñas Castán at the Paxos Music Festival and at the Festival Música Sacra Granada with their programme "Dream of time".

She received singing lessons from Sabine Seidel at an early age. Her artistic training is complemented by lessons with Prof. Elisabeth Glauser, Prof. Ulrich Eisenlohr, Prof. Hans Eijsackers and others.

In 2023 she sang her first opera role as "Domiziano" in the German premiere of the baroque opera "Il Tito" by Antonio Cesti in a university production. In the spring of 2024, she sang one of the lead roles, Dorinda, in "Le trame deluse" at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne as part of the "Rheinische Opernakademie".

In addition to her great love of opera, she has devoted herself intensively to the interpretation and research of art song. She specialises in the interpretation of 20th century Japanese art songs, contemporary art songs and the work of female composers.

August 2025 - No modification of this biography without permission.