Julia Gaines

Julia Hillbrick Gaines is an American percussionist and academic. From 2014-2023, she was director of the School of Music at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. She has performed worldwide as a soloist, and released her first album, Tiger Dance, in 2017. She was on the International Board of Directors of the Percussive Arts Society, and became secretary. She has performed with the Missouri Symphony, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Fox Valley Symphony, and the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra. She has served as associate editor for Percussive Notes, a scholarly journal of the Percussive Arts Society, and became associate editor of the Keyboard Percussion section.

Early life and education Julia Gaines was born in 1969 in Bellevue, Washington, and by second grade had moved to Moscow, Idaho. There, she began learning the piano, and switched to percussion. She graduated from Moscow High School in 1987 and went on to attend the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Works