Julia Zavadsky

A recipient of the Elaine Brown Award for Choral Excellence and winner of numerous international choral festival competitions, she has been the artistic director of Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia, since 2015.

Dr. Zavadsky received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from Stony Brook University and her Master of Music degree in conducting from Temple University, where she has taught since 2000. Before immigrating to the United States, she earned Bachelor of Music degrees in music theory, conducting, and composition from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the R. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music. Dr. Zavadsky studied conducting with Timothy Long in New York; Alan Harler and Janet Yamron in Philadelphia; Aharon Harlap in Jerusalem; and Mikhail Hardayev in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Dr. Zavadsky’s ensembles have performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the New York Theatre Workshop, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the Field Concert Hall of the Curtis Institute, and the Temple University Performing Arts Center in Philadelphia. They have also participated in tours to the Middle East and Europe. As director of the Rutgers University Singers since 2006, Dr. Zavadsky has organized and hosted annual choral festivals for high school, university, and community choirs. In 2011 she founded the Singing Hearts Choral Society of Southern New Jersey.

Fluent in Ukrainian, Russian, and Hebrew, Dr. Zavadsky has worked with musicians from all over the world. She serves as a Russian repertoire language coach at Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts. Her artistic career demonstrates her commitment to bringing diverse performers and audiences together through music. Toward this end, she has worked and performed with ensembles like Choral Arts Philadelphia; Singing City; Philadelphia Voices of Pride; Temple University Singing Owls; ANNA Crusis Feminist Choir; Zamir Chorale of Boston; Jewish Theological Seminary of America’s H. L. Miller Cantorial School Choir; PhilHarmonia; and the Cheltenham Korean Presbyterian Church.

Dr. Zavadsky is dedicated to highlighting contemporary political issues through musical collaborations. In recent times, she has worked together with Israeli and Palestinian musicians and, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has performed and educated audiences about Ukrainian musical traditions and repertoire.