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STUDENT TESTIMONIALS:
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On numerous occasions during the intense periods before international competitions and recitals I would request guidance from Ms Chaplin, and every hour of work together was most inspiring.

Yoshio Hamano, former MPerf student, Royal College of Music, 
Currently University Lecturer, Tokyo College of Music and Tokyo Univeristy of Arts
I had the chance to work with the great musician Julia Chaplin a few times. Every time I work with her, I feel very inspired. Her teaching method is always linked to the idea of being true to the score and to the music. She has a great knowledge about pianism and a vast number of imaginative ideas about the repertoire. Those ideas stimulate me to ask more from myself. Her lessons are a creative journey, which is the point of any lesson or masterclass. Julia’s suggestions put my playing on another level and I am very grateful for everything I learned during her masterclasses.

Ana Bursac, BMus (Honours) , Royal College of Music
Julia is an impressive teacher who taught me a tremendous amount. Her ideas on colour and the intricacy and delicacy of touch required to bring Debussy to life were incredibly inspiring. I felt I understood the piece on a completely new level after our masterclass. 

Sonya Pigot, MPerf student, Royal College of Music
Beside Julia's very useful technical solutions to adopt in Scriabin's Fantasie op 28, she deeply understands the music and her musical background and intuition are immensely helpful to catch and to assimilate, in a pure and energetic way, the meaning of the language of Scriabin. We worked on the type of fortes and on the intensities of the pianos, on the importance of the accompaniment in support of the main line. Julia is an extremely talented musician and very dedicated teacher. I have loved worked with her.

Simone Tavoni, Advanced Diploma course, Trinity Laban Conservatoire 
I would like to express my gratitude for the masterclass I had the fortune to take part in earlier in London. The masterclass gave me a lot of inspiration for my practice.
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Alexandra Balog, MMus student, Royal Academy of Music
I am delighted to have had lessons with Julia Chaplin. Julia is a mature musician and a fantastic teacher. Throughout our lessons, she shared the most creative and interesting ideas with me, enabling my playing to rise to a higher level. Julia pays equal attention to fine nuances and bigger form, which makes her a very attentive and professional teacher. Her lessons comprehensively provide sophisticated analysis of the musical pieces and they are great fun. I found Julia’s suggestions particularly helpful as part of preparation for my recitals and later on, for my successful exam. I have absorbed her advice into my playing and I believe that it helped me getting a high mark in my exam.

Maria Kustas, BMus (Honours), Royal College of Music
Julia had very interesting ideas about the piece I was playing - Sonnet 104 del Petrarca by Liszt. She helped me solve some technical problems too. Most importantly Julia was not just explaining clearly her ideas but she was able to demonstrate them on the piano. She helped me improve my performance of the piece and feel more secure about performing it in a concert later that month.

Marina Staneva, Artist Masters in Piano Performance, Guildhall School of Music and Drama
I was invited by the music department of St Paul’s School to take part in a new school hosted masterclass event given by Julia Chaplin. Given free choice with the repertoire, I opted to perform a short programme of Leighton’s Study no. 5, followed by Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s Isoldens Liebestod. Having partaken in masterclasses before, both as an active participant and as a casual observer, I’ve often felt them to be the most nerve-wracking experiences, especially when working with a teacher for the first time, with a live audience added to the event.
 
Not only was the class enjoyable and stimulating to me, I found Julia’s direct feedback both during the class and even upon further discussion afterwards to be invaluable. Throughout the class she maintained a very logical and composed manner, suggesting exciting new methods in search of a more unique interpretation whilst still
remaining loyal to the score. As such, she was not only able to identify any questionable moments in my performance but was also able to provide stylistic solutions to them that could help bring my performance to the next level.
Even in the face of a much more unusual piece of repertoire in the form the Leighton, she was left unfazed, proposing intriguing musical ideas that I’d never even considered up to this point in time. To the present day, I have performed both these pieces numerous times as part of recital programmes or as encores – notably, I used the Wagner-Liszt as part of my programme whilst applying to conservatoire. To this day I still take to mind many of the concepts that Julia suggested to me and I believe that they have benefited me hugely across a wide range of repertoire. I cannot speak highly enough of my experience

Noah Zhou, Former pupil of St. Paul's School in London, currently BMus student, Royal Academy of Music
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