About
Philadelphia-based Pianist and Conductor Julian Grabarek is a highly sought after collaborator on opera productions nationwide. Mr. Grabarek is a Company Artist at Opera Delaware serving as Resident Coach and Conductor. This fall, he will music direct OD’s chamber productions of Fernanda and Amahl and the Night Visitors and be the assistant conductor for their mainstage production of Don Giovanni. Later in the ’26-’27 season, Mr. Grabarek will also join Opera Philadelphia as a guest coach and harpsichordist for the world premiere of Sitcom by Luke Styles.
As a vocal coach to both professionals and emerging operatic artists, Mr. Grabarek currently is on the staff pianist roster at the Curtis Institute of Music and will be a Visiting Lecturer of Vocal Coaching with the University of Michigan Department of Voice & Opera in 2027. He maintains a private coaching studio in Philadelphia and has prepared singers for productions at major opera companies in the US and abroad.
Mr. Grabarek recently finished two years as an Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera. While at SFO, he worked as a member of the music staff on The Magic Flute, Carmen, Idomeneo, and the widely acclaimed world premiere of Huang Ruo’s The Monkey King.
In the ’25–’26 season, Mr. Grabarek joined the music staffs of Des Moines Metro Opera (Associate Conductor, Of Mice and Men), Opera Delaware (Rehearsal Pianist, Andrea Chénier), and San Diego Opera (Vocal Coach, Carmen).
As a recitalist, Grabarek is equally at home with vocalists and instrumentalists. He enjoys performing a wide range of music, from Schubert Lieder to Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Grabarek has performed on Merola Opera’s Schwabacher Recital Series, curated by Nicolas Phan. In the past, he has performed recitals at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, MI, and the Bellingham Music Festival. During his time as a student at the University of Michigan, he performed as a regular collaborator for members of the Voice and String departments and appeared on numerous recitals at the Aspen Music Festival in summer 2022.
In fall 2023, he was a guest coach and chorus master at the University of Houston for a double bill of Offenbach’s Monsieur Choufleuri and Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges. He was an apprentice vocal coach at the 2023 Merola Opera Program in San Francisco where he worked on Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Act 2 from Verdi’s Otello, and appeared in Metamorphosis: a piano/vocal recital.
As the son and grandson of Polish and Czech immigrants, Mr. Grabarek has a particular passion for the music of Czech composers such as Vitězslava Kaprálová and Leoš Janáček. His first complete opera was Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, which he helped prepare at the University of Michigan. He is also a proficient harpsichordist, having studied continuo and performed as the recitativo accompanist for Don Giovanni while pursuing his graduate studies.
Mr. Grabarek completed his Master of Music degree at the University of Michigan studying collaborative piano with Martin Katz and conducting with Jayce Ogren and received a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Oberlin College and Conservatory where he studied with Robert Shannon. He is originally from Acton, Massachusetts.
