Julie O'Hara

Julie O'Hara is a freelance performing and recording artist and a veteran of the Melbourne/Naarm jazz scene.

Julie began her professional jazz singing career as a teenager with residencies enabling her to work with some of the county’s finest jazz musicians. The desire to evolve musically to communicate with her peers began in those early years, inspired by the musicianship around her.

Now an established musician, songwriter and recording artist, Julie has regularly toured Europe, Asia and Australia, playing at jazz and music festivals or performing as a guest vocalist, (The Cat Empire, Hoodangers, The Pearly Shells, Mistaken Identity, M.O.P, Virus). Although Julie performs predominantly jazz music, she also writes for pop, bluegrass, hip hop, R&B, neo soul, country and EDM.

Julie writes songs across various genres, having freelanced in different musical scenes for over thirty years. Julie features on over thirty recordings, including Aria award winning album, ‘Cities’ by The Cat Empire and ‘Midnight Sun’ with George Washingmachine (nominated for a Bell Award for best jazz vocal album). Julie has won numerous song writing awards for jazz, contemporary pop and EDM.

Julie works as a music educator, lecturing in jazz and contemporary voice and improvisation at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University and teaches song writing at Melbourne Graduate School and at Wild at Heart.

Julie has a background in Speech Pathology and voice science. Julie has taught singing, song writing and improvisation at NMIT, VCA, Melbourne Conservatoire, Melbourne Polytechnic, Victoria University and RMIT.

Awards

ASA Songwriting awards

1st place EDM category "Rosie" (J.O'Hara/C.Snape)

1st place contemporary ballad category "Back to me"(J.O'Hara/G.Deleo)

Top 5 Open - "Magic hands" (Skaddabox)

Nominated songwriter of the year 2005

Nominated best jazz vocal album - "Midnight Sun" Julie O'Hara & George Washingmachine

Tags

Julie O'Hara Julie O'Hara, voice/vocals, Melbourne, Australia, vocalese, bop, afro cuban, improvisation, jazz rap, groove, Swing

"An outstanding singer".....Laurence Donahue-Green (All about Jazz)

"O’Hara’s music deserves to be left to linger in the air, to be swayed to and to be absorbed". (Australian Stage, Review speigletent)

"There is something ever so captivating about a singer who takes control of a stage not only with great artistry but also with an aura of calm. Julie O’Hara, a name known well to the Melbourne jazz scene, does just this" (Australian Stage, Review Spiegletent)

"O'Hara's vocals are imbued with a strong jazz feel with eloquent phrasing, melodic variations and rhythmic expression " John McBeath (The Australian)

"With her perfect pitch, skillful improvising and ego-free style, O'Hara has carved out a reputation on the Australian and international music scene for high-quality performances that are accessible to everyone".Ken Turnball (Castlemaine State Festival review - vocalese project)

"An outstanding singer".....Laurence Donahue-Green (All about Jazz)

"O’Hara’s music deserves to be left to linger in the air, to be swayed to and to be absorbed". (Australian Stage, Review speigletent)

"With jazz increasingly the international language, it should come as no surprise that even distant Melbourne, Australia (an approximate 25-hour-flight from NYC) boasts the bevy of talent, both young and old, that it does. A few more-than-qualifying "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition candidates hail from Down Under, including pianist Aaron Choulai, vocalist Julie O'Hara and saxophonist Jamie Oehlers" (All about Jazz, New York, 2007)

"Of the plethora of vocalists (from McNulty to Aussies Elana Stone and Janet Seidel), Julie O'Hara was undoubtedly the stand-out. At Bennett's, listeners waited with baited breath for each turn the vocalist spontaneously took in lyric and scat. Unlike many contemporary jazz vocalists, her scatting is an essential— not novel—ingredient to her style, as much as her lyrical and highly rhythmic sensibilities. An outstanding singer who brings to mind the glory days of the late Anita O'Day, her approach is as if she were an instrument herself (much like another one of today's most promising vocal stars Roberta Gambarini), frequently inserting herself into the horn section, doubling up to blow backing choruses with instrumental prowess. Not surprisingly her vocalese project's repertoire was filled with hornplayer tunes, from Dizzy Gillespie's "Birk's Works and "Groovin' High to Hank Mobley's "Soul Station," Gigi Gryce's "Minority," Teddy Edwards' "Nothin' But The Truth," Sonny Rollins' "Why Don't I," and Cannonball Adderley's "Spontaneous Combustion." Her original lyrics to Jimmy Giuffre's "Four Brothers were hysterical (basically about falling in love with four brothers!) and of course musical as ever, speeding up the tempo in the second set of lyrics and culminating with a trading of fours with drummer Edward York before culminating with an á la beyond Brady Bunch lyric: "One, Two, Three, Four?—Why not make make it Five?! Given lyrics to an original instrumental composition commonly compromise the original's tempo and flow, but O'Hara's word selection and horn-like delivery easily communicates and flows a musicality so convincingly and thoroughly that it became easy to forget many of these numbers either never had lyrics or previously had others. The set closer, an of course blazing rendition of "Cherokee," featured the entire band: Ben Winkelman (piano), Leigh Barker (bass), Carl Barbaro (tenor sax) and Eamon McNalis (trumpet) as well as the demanding tempo maintenance provided by York. Everyone on and off stage had a blast that evening, with those offstage clapping and hollering for more encores deep into the night" (Melbourne International Jazz Festival 2007 Kristian Laemmle-Ruff)