Julie Nishimura

Traveling Solo and Collaborative Pianist

Julie Nishimura, Collaborative Pianist

Julie Nishimura

Traveling Solo and Collaborative Pianist

ABOUT

Pianist Julie Nishimura was the University of Delaware School of Music’s Faculty Accompanist for 31 years, having performed over 600 recitals, chamber music concerts and opera performances, and, in addition, teaching the Accompanying Classes. During that time, she was also a Staff Collaborative Artist for Philadelphia’s Strings International Music Festival, now Philadelphia International Music Festival, and, for 20 years, San Francisco-based California Summer Music. Since retirement, she has stayed active as a freelance collaborative artist, enjoying a variety of projects, including work as a rehearsal pianist for Berkeley’s West Edge Opera and Wilmington’s Opera Delaware; guest artist for the Gold Coast Chamber Players and The Allegheny Ensemble; and Faculty Pianist at Ohio’s Encore Chamber Music Institute since 2022. She can often be seen jumping in at the last minute for rehearsals and recitals! For over twenty years she has been Artistic Director for Wilmington, Delaware’s non-profit, Distant Voices Touring Theatre, which she started with her late husband Danny Peak, performing a theatrical show underscored with piano music about her father’s time in the Japanese American Concentration Camps of WWII. Julie has enjoyed recording projects with friends Denise Tryon, horn; Christopher Nichols, clarinet; Sheila Browne, viola; and can be heard on the Bridge, Albany and Navona labels. Currently, she divides her time between the San Francisco Bay Area, playing in The Class Act Big Band, Classical Revolution SF, and in coffee shops as “Classical Lites with Jewels”, and the East Coast.