Julien Monette (b. 2001) is a composer and performer of new music based in Newport News, Virginia.  He is pursuing a BM in Music Composition and Piano Performance at Christopher Newport University.  He writes music for concerts, the stage, films, games, audiobooks, and installations in a tasteful blend of acoustic and electronic idioms.  Julien's music explores natural and unnatural sonic environments using a variety of compositional styles and processes, and often uses programmatic or interdisciplinary inspirations such as paintings, poetry, philosophy, sculpture, physics, and psychology.  Julien views music to be a language with a discernable syntax, in which choices of time and sound are analogous to words, sentences, or paragraphs.  He uses this philosophy first and foremost to encourage listeners to engage and reflect on environments, lives, relationships, and purposes in real or imagined worlds. 

 

Julien has had works performed at the annual CNU Composer's Forum and Society of Composers, Inc. Events, and presented research on "The Art of Interpretation: Translating Emotions Into Sound" at CNU's 2023 Paideia Research Conference.  He frequently collaborates with artists such as saxophonist Julian Cruz, flautist-composer William Kessler, violist Tyler Hyun, vocalist-pianist Jonathan Martin, vocalist Adin Weingast, and pianist Ethan Wills.  He has studied composition with Maxwell Tfirn and piano with Benjamin Corbin, Seung-Hye Kim, and Ruta Smedina-Starke.  Julien has collaborated professionally with directors Korstiaan Vandiver, Edward Wandrick, and Don-Dmitri Joseph, and screenwriter A.J. Fitzgerald.  Julien has self-recorded and produced over 200 works under the label Cookie Crumbs Records, founded in 2020 by himself and Ryan Bonanno.

 

Outside of music, Julien creates abstract digital art using complex image layering techniques to explore differences in visual interpretations of illogically arranged stimuli.  Julien's work features frequently in the album art of his music and in the promotional art for his public performances and profiles.  When not creating, Julien enjoys learning about the cultural history and mythology of other parts of the world, playing Dungeons and Dragons or Magic: The Gathering with friends, and travelling to new places.