Guest Artist Recital: Jay Julio, viola and Josh Tatsuo Cullen, piano

Monday, March 2, 2026
7:30 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Alumni, Community, Faculty, Staff, Students

From Uniondale, New York, first-generation Filipino-American violist and composer Jay Julio splits time between NYC, Philadelphia, and on tour. Jay serves as Assistant Principal Violist of the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra and has performed with the American Composers Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and the Dallas Symphony. Recent solo appearances include concertos with the Ocala Symphony, the Marquette Symphony, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Jay has recorded for Parma, Nonesuch, and Broadway Records, including on pianist-composer Timo Andres' 2025 Grammy Award-nominated release The Blind Banister, and they have been heard on radio/TV across the US, Australia, and Europe both as musician and equity advocate.

They look forward to a renewed commitment to new music in the 2025-2026 season; highlights include shows with the BlackBox Ensemble in an all-Asian-American music program at National Sawdust, celebrating the album release of Charles Gaines' Manifestos 6 at CAP UCLA, and regional premieres of works by James Lee III, Courtney Bryan, and themselves in a duo tour of the Midwest with pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen.

A prizewinner in competitions held by the Music Teachers National Association, the National Federation of Music Clubs, and the YoungArts Foundation, Jay is indebted to the Virtu Foundation and the American Viola Society for further support in the form of instrument and bow loans during their studies. They are an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, the New York String Orchestra Seminar and the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, with other festival appearances at Aspen (New Horizons Fellow), Pacific, Spoleto, and Cabrillo. As educator, Jay has served as a Teaching Fellow at the Juilliard School's Music Advancement Program, on faculty at the Stony Brook University Chamber Strings Camp, and as substitute viola & chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division. They have been invited to serve on grant panels for the New York State Council for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the MAP Fund.

After starting formal musical training at 14, Jay received a BM from the Manhattan School of Music at 20 and a MM from the Juilliard School as a full-tuition Susan W. Rose Fellow, studying with Karen Ritscher, Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Matthew Lipman. Other important mentors include Leilehua Lanzilotti, Todd Low, and Saskia Hamilton. Away from the instrument, Jay is an award-winning poet; their work can be found in the Cincinnati Review, the Mississippi Review, and elsewhere.

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Born in Hawaii and raised outside of Detroit, Japanese-American pianist and conductor Josh Tatsuo Cullen is acclaimed for his "astounding mixture of coolness and intensity" (Stuttgart Zeitung) and has been praised for his 'delicious' collaboration by The New York Times.

His professional career began at age nine when he performed and recorded Mozart's Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488 with the Moscow Philharmonic. Since then, he has appeared as soloist with the Detroit Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, Fort Worth Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony, and Otsu Philharmonic orchestras.

As collaborative pianist, Josh toured Taiwan with violinist Sheng-Ching Hsu in 2025, performing and recording the world premiere of Danse de Ballet en Solo by Golden Melody award-winning composer Apple Chang at the National Performing Arts Center in Taipei and the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts at Weiwuying.

Josh's deep interest in works by underrepresented composers led him to record Scenes in Tin Can Alley: Piano Music of Florence Price, which introduced the first commercial recordings of many of Price's newly rediscovered solo piano miniatures. Gramophone called it an "absolutely lovely disc" played with "flair, finesse, and conviction." The album is frequently heard on radio stations across the country, and Josh's live performance of "Clouds" has been broadcast nationally multiple times on the public radio program Performance Today.

He recorded the world premiere of Recuerdos Diaspóricos (2018) by fellow Michigan native James Lee III, as well as Beethoven's piano concertos nos. 1, 2 and 3, and Mozart's concerto for two pianos with his mentor, Paul Badura-Skoda and the Czech National Symphony.

Equally at home in musical theater, Josh served as music associate on Hamilton (Angelica Tour) and associate conductor on Frozen (1st National Tour) and Beauty and the Beast (30th Anniversary Tour). He has also been a vocal coach for summer music theater programs at New York University.

Josh holds a master's degree in solo piano from The Juilliard School and a master's degree in collaborative piano from New York University. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan at age 16. His principal piano teachers include Jerome Lowenthal, Arthur Greene, and Grant Wenaus.

Josh is a proud U.S. army veteran, having spent a decade training host nation forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines. His YouTube channel, @armypianist, features his own original solo piano arrangements of video game music.

Location Information

Sherman van Solkema Recital Hall

Download parking map for the Allendale Campus

Contact Information

Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance
(616) 331-3484

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This event was added to the calendar by Bridgett Vanderhoof (vandebri@gvsu.edu) on Monday, September 22, 2025 and was last updated on Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 7:51 p.m.