2008 IBLA Grand Prize Top Prize Winner, pianist - composer Julija Bal, Serbia
Julija Bal at Cernegie Weill Hall with IBLA Foundation Chairwoman Baronessa Mariuccia Zerilli Marimo'
2008 IBLA Grand Prize Top Prize Winner, pianist - composer Julija Bal, at the University of Minot, North Dakota, USA
Julia Bal in Little Rock, Arkansas Rafael Bravo & Julija Bal
Julija Bal in Jacksonville, Arkansas among other IBLA winners Anna Rutkowska Schock & Julija Bal
Julija Bal at the University of Minot in North Dakota, USA
Julija Bal & Anna Rutkowska Schock
JULIJA BAL pianist and composer
Top winner of IBLA Grand Prize 2008 and “Villa Lobos” Special Award
Visit site: julijabal.com
- She lives in music, for each piece is a little theater !
- Endless palette of images and contrasts – a real improviser – composer at the creative moment!
- She finds some harmonies, details, additional voices that probably the Composers themselves didn’t expect. Phenomenal ear for the piano effects
- Huge range of emotions, great! So colourful! From ppp to fff.
- Musically – perfect – a real musician.
- Good flowing technique and expression.
- A most gifted individual
- Remarkable technique fluent passages in combination with the most impressionistic chordal touches.
Comments from the Jury of IBLA Grand Prize competition 2008,
Maestro Marcello Abbado, Chairman
Dr. Salvatore Moltisanti, President
Pianist and composer Julija Bal, is a 2008 Top Prize Winner and “Villa Lobos” Special Prize recipient at the IBLA Grand Prize Competition. organized in New York City by the IBLA Foundation and held annualy in Ragusa Ibla, Italy.
Julija Bal performed on the IBLA Winners concert tour in Carnegie Weill Hall along with the winners of the Competition with encore request and great critical acclaim.
Her performing style being described as an original combination of powerful individuality and temperament as well as peculiar techniques of sound creating have attracted the audience and the Competition jury when she performed her own virtuosic transcriptions of Schubert, Albéniz and Villa Lobos for the piano.
The most attention was paid to the transcriptions of all 12 Hector Villa Lobos études composed exclusively for the guitar.
Soon after the performance at IBLA Grand Prize competition, Julija gained success once more with these transcriptions and entered the finale Tansman International Competition of Music Personalities in Lodz ,Poland , 2009.
Ms Bal has also won awards at competitions such as the international competition „Petar Konjovic“, state and federal competitions in Belgrade, the „Competition of Young Pianists of Yugoslavia“ in Nis, the „Yamaha“ competition in Novi Sad, the „IBLA Grand Prize“ and many others.
Julija Bal has done a series of notable performances throughout Serbia , Italy , Germany , Poland and the United States of America such as Virginia , North Dakota , Arkansas , New York ). She performed at festivals such as Nomus, Val Tidone, A-fest, IBLA, 1000 Tone, Festival of the Guitar in Novi Sad , 2009, where she gave the premiere performance of the 12 transcriptions of Villa Lobos etudes under the patronage of Brazilian Embassy.
Her repertoire invariably consists of the pieces of Clementi, Rachmaninoff, Musogorski, Stravinski, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Bach and others.
She has worked together with professors K.Gekic, J. Mihailovic, B.Dabic, Alan Fraser (Canada-Serbia), L. Pogorelic (Croatia), A. Valdma (Estonia), K. Bogino (France), I. Jones (England), S. Panovska (Malesia) and others.
She did the recitals of chamber music as a member of the Chamber group “Ad Libitum” i.e. the piano duet J.Bal – J.Bajic, and she cooperated with the members of the “Bassiona Amorosa” quartet as well as with the Jewish Chamber Choir of “Hasira”.
Within IBLA concert tour, besides playing solo, Julia performed in a piano duet with a Polish pianist Anna Rutkowska Schock, who was also one of the winners of this competition.
Julija cooperated with radio and TV stations such as NBC, Polish Radio, RTS and many others.
Her compositions were presented on the First World Convention of EPTA 2009, which covers the achievements in the field of piano music.