What do you need to feel at home whilst on tour? A quiet hotel room, my computer, my phone, my books, a nearby Starbucks, a Fitness First-gym, a supermarket. (Yay Dortmund :)
What is the most difficult aspect of your job? That one can never stop playing for some days or go on a holiday without losing shape of playing your instrument, unless you take it with you.
What is the best thing about being a musician? That you get to play all this wonderful music and meet so many interesting and inspiring people through your work and that you get to travel and see the world when playing concerts with MCO.
What would you do if you weren't a musician? I would probably still want to work in the musical business or be a doctor or work with kids.
Which are your Desert Island Discs? Jan Johansson: Jazz På Svenska, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau & Gerald Moore: Schubert Goethe-Lieder; Czech Philharmonic Orchestra & Vaclav Talich: Suk "Asrael" Symphony; Czech Philharmonic Orchestra & Vaclav Neuman: Janacek Sinfonietta; Berliner Philharmoniker & Claudio Abbado: Beethoven-Symphonies.
BIOGRAPHY Julia-Maria Kretz was born in Berlin in 1980. She studied with Marianne Boettcher as a Jungstudentin at the Universität der Künste Berlin and with Thomas Brandis at the Universität der Künste Berlin and at the Musikhochschule Lübeck. Additionally, she received lessons from Josef Suk in Prague.
With her Piano Trio (Julius Stern Trio), founded in 1996, she studied with Menahem Pressler (Beaux Arts Trio), Georg Sava and Wolfgang Boettcher and graduated from the M.A. chamber music programme in the class of Niklas Schmidt (Trio Fontenay) at the Musikhochschule Hamburg. Her piano trio has won various prizes at contests such as the International Chamber Music Contest Premio Vittorio Gui in Florence (2004), Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Competition in Berlin (2005) and the International Chamber Music Contest Trio di Trieste in Trieste (2005). In 2005, she received the Rauhe-Preis of the city of Hamburg and the Klassikpreis of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk.
Julia-Maria Kretz received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation and the PE-Förderkreis für Studierende der Musik e.V.
She is a member of the chamber music ensemble Spectrum Concerts Berlin, which also includes musicians such as Janine Jansen, Hartmut Rohde, Torleif Thedeen and Jens Peter Maintz and has its own concert series in the Kammermusiksaal of the Berliner Philharmonie. With Spectrum Concerts, she also performed at Carnegie Hall in New York and at Concertge¬bouw Amsterdam in 2006.
Julia-Maria Kretz has played chamber music concerts with artists such as Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, Isabelle Faust, Lawrence Power, Hartmut Rohde, Torleif Thedeen, Jens Peter Maintz, Itamar Golan, Mischa Maisky and Maxim Rysanov, and she has played at festivals such as Julian Rachlin and Friends, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and Mozarttage Salzburg. She has participated in recordings for the German radio stations WDR, NDR, SWR and RBB Berlin, for Czech Radio, Radio France and in CD recordings with chamber music for NAXOS.
As a soloist, Julia-Maria Kretz has performed with, among others, the Nürnberger Symphoniker, Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Symphoniker and Philharmonisches Orchester Bad Reichenhall, at venues such as the Musikhalle Hamburg, Philharmonie Berlin, Musik- und Kongresshalle Lübeck, Meistersingerhalle Nürnberg, Mozarteum Salzburg, Konzerthaus Berlin and Herkulessaal München.
In 2006, Julia-Maria Kretz became a member of LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, led by Claudio Abbado, and since 2008 she has been a member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Since 2008 she has been principal second violin in the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
