Born into a musical family Julian Pollack started studying classical piano at age 5 with his mother. In high school he participated in the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts' (NFAA) Young Arts program and was awarded the Level One Gold Prize in the jazz discipline. He also received a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Pollack decided to move to New York in 2006 to study jazz piano and composition at New York University. At 18 years of age, he was featured on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, and went on to later open at the Blue Note in New York City for Chick Corea and Gary Burton, as well as performing as a sideman with Brian Lynch at the Village Vanguard. Julian’s critically acclaimed record, “Infinite Playground” received accolades with comments ranging from "ferociously assured and creatively dazzling," to "masses of heart and soul, adding an emotional intensity that lifts this music to uncommon heights..." This year, Pollack won an ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award for his composition "Blackberry," which was included on his latest record. He was also recently featured in the film In Good Time, a documentary about the life of Marian McPartland. Last year, The organization The French Will Never Forget (TFWNF) commissioned Pollack to compose and arrange for piano and the Academie de Musique Symphony orchestra for the largest September 11th ten-year commemoration in the world outside of NYC, which took place in front of the Eiffel Tower, at the Place du Trocadero in Paris. In April, he performed with Broadway-star Carrie Manolakos at the Poisson Rouge in NYC where they performed Radiohead's "Creep" (arranged by Pollack), which was videoed and became a viral sensation on Youtube, receiving over 700,000 views within the first two weeks of its release. This year finds Pollack performing his original concerto for piano and orchestra, which was premiered by the Camellia Symphony Orchestra in Sacramento, CA in March of 2012. He will be performing the piece twice more, once in July at the Mendocion Music Festival and once with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra in Michigan in November.
