Born in Wales to a musical family, Julia soon fell in love with music at an early age. Julia's family moved to Cornwall when she was five years old and apart from the odd year spent in London and Bath, she has lived there ever since. Julia first started learning the clarinet and recorder with Lydia Holmes when she was seven years old and successfully competed at local music festivals either as a soloist or as a member of one of Lydia's recorder groups. As a teenager, Julia was drawn to the saxophone and started learning the tenor saxophone at school. She also spent a few years toiling away on the viola and earned extra pocket money playing the church organ.
Julia graduated from Exeter University in 2002 with a BMus Hons in Jazz Music and majored in Composing and Arranging. She then undertook a PGCE at Bath Spa University and began her teaching career in 2003. Julia later became Head of Music at Redruth School. In 2014, she joined Cornwall Music Service Trust as a peripatetic teacher and Stagecoach as a vocal coach. Julia also coordinated and delivered the "Big Sing" project in partnership with Truro Cathedral and in 2015, she joined the Cornwall County Choirs team as a choir leader. Julia became an Assistant Director of Cornwall County Choirs in 2018 and is responsible for the administration of the choirs. Julia returned to the classroom in 2017 when she was appointed as Director of Music at Polwhele House School.
Julia is a member of the Four Tunes Saxophone Quartet and Motown Pirates and plays for various local productions at venues such as the Minack Theatre. She is also Musical Director of Young Generation, a theatre group for young people aged between 10-20 years ago - the company won Outstanding Musical Performance at the 2019 Cornwall Drama Association Awards for their production of "Sister Act".