BIOGRAPHY

Hailed by the press as “the voice of an angel [whose] poise and command of the stage is both mesmerizing and captivating,” (Debra Graff, Sleepless in Studio City), international recording artist, songwriter and pianist Julia Vari “shines whether performing pop, jazz, or various Latin music styles, all of which she can deftly sing in eight different languages.” (George Varga, San Diego Union Tribune).  

Recognized as “without a doubt the most important voice of her genre in Mexico” (Mario Moreno Ivanova, son of Cantinflas), the multilingual artist has enchanted audiences around the globe for nearly a decade, including recent performances at Mexico City’s National Auditorium “Lunario,” the CARIFESTA International Festival in Haiti, Berlin stage in Madrid, National Arts Center in Ottawa, CLAZZ Latin Festival (sharing the stage with Arturo Sandoval), and Vitello’s Supper Club in Los Angeles.  

She has toured extensively through the U.S., Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and Spain behind a pair of ground-breaking, chart-topping full-length album releases: a jazz-inflected fusion titled Lumea: Songs of the World in Jazz(2013), followed by Adoro(2015). Both albums soared to the top of the jazz-blues charts in Latin America, competing with artists such as Michael Buble and Diana Krall, and these events consequently led her to share the stage and collaborate with musical icons such as Grammy winner Arturo Sandoval, Armando Manzanero, Grammy-winning singer Luciana Souza, Grammy-winning producer Robert Hadley, Latin Grammy-winning producer Mario Santos, and Latin Grammy-nominated artist Francisco Cespedes.  

Vari’s most recent discographic material, Intimo (2020), is an intimate and carefully selected repertoire of boleros and original songs elegantly interpreted by Vari on piano and vocals, with guest artists including the renowned Mexican bolero singer Carlos Cuevas.

The child of a classically-trained pianist mother and an accomplished guitar player father who became a medical doctor, Vari bounced back and forth for many years between the USA and Mexico, as well as some time spent in Europe; as a result, she has long considered herself a citizen of the world.  Vari has made it a matter of practice to defy creative and imaginative limits, as her dynamically eclectic repertoire spans across a vast spectrum of genres and languages—she sings and has recorded material in six languages beyond her native English and Spanish. At University of Rochester’s renowned Eastman School of Music, her studies included voice, piano theory and composition, as well as musical theater training at New York University.  

With an extraordinary voice that can growl its way through a torchy love song one moment, go operatic the next and then shift smoothly into pop, swing, or any other musical idiom, Vari’s passion is mixing different genres into exciting fusions.  Her unparalleled vocal charisma is at equally home with jazz, boleros, world rhythms, or pop, and perhaps more so in those unmined spaces where those overlap.  She has been called the “Diana Krall of Mexico,” often surprising her audience with her piano stylings, and more recently has been known to perform solo piano-voice concerts in addition to quartet and big band.

Julia Vari now divides her time between Miami and Mexico City, where she also created and developed a successful jazz series entitled Condesa Jazz Nights in the Condesa neighborhood.  Vari is a proud voting member of the Latin Recording Academy (LARAS), a BMI songwriter, and a William Morris Endeavor Agency exclusive artist for Voice Overs.