Julie Pease
Violin
I was born and raised in Winona, a small town in Minnesota. Music has always been a part of my life in one way or another. I remember eagerly awaiting my 5th birthday, because that was when I could take piano lessons! I began the violin in the public schools at age nine, and still play the bright and warm-sounding student violin that my parents gave me when I was 11 years old!
While an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I played with their Chamber Music Society and Symphony Orchestra. During medical school at the University of Minnesota, I found time to play in a pit orchestra for a couple of musicals, and during one summer break I built a harpsichord, which traveled with me to Vermont and then to Maine. Music played "second fiddle" to studies, career and family, and my violin stayed in the closet for many years, until I moved to Brunswick and started playing with the Midcoast Symphony in 2002. I served on the MSO Board of Directors from 2010 to 2016.
During my career as a psychiatrist, I have served patients in private practice and in community mental health clinics in Sanford, Saco, Portland and Brunswick. I've also worked in hospitals and clinics in New Zealand. In 2008, while living and working in Hamilton, NZ, I had the pleasure of performing with the Trust Waikato Symphony Orchestra and the Opus Chamber Orchestra. I also was so impressed by the quality and affordability and fairness of the NZ health system, that I have become a passionate advocate for universal health care here in the USA.
I will always be grateful for my parents' gift of private lessons. They encouraged me to become proficient on two instruments, and my musical hobbies have given me lifelong enjoyment. I feel very privileged to play with such a vibrant group of musicians in our Midcoast Symphony, and I hope that our audience has as much fun watching and listening as we do with our playing!
