Director of Development for Theatre Arts

BM - Berklee College of Music, Composition

Julia Berg has devoted her life and career to the advancement of the performing arts.  She is currently the director of development for the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Miami where she is leading a capital campaign to enhance facilities and increase funding for theatre scholarships. Prior non-profit management experience includes serving as interim executive director and development director for The Pasadena POPS Orchestra (2004-2006) and director of development for the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California (2007).

She is a graduate of Berklee College of Music (BM, music composition) where she was a film-scoring department assistant and worked as an independent music editor. A percussionist and pianist, she became a published author by the age of 24 with The Multiple Percussionist (CL Barnhouse) and has co-written songs including Christmas in My Heart recorded by Ray Charles.  She has also authored several music texts including Keyboard Discoveries for Yamaha Corporation and Musical Discoveries for the Grammy Children’s Concert Series.

She began her management career in Los Angeles as a music publishing sales representative and worked as the sheet music manager for a busy retail music store. Alfred Publishing Company tapped her to become their marketing director where she was subsequently promoted to vice-president of marketing and new product development. After 12 years at Alfred she joined Coda Music Technology as vice president of repertoire development for its SmartMusic application, where she successfully negotiated thousands of multi-media licenses and supervised the production activities of a large team of software engineers.

In 1998 she launched her own publishing company and edited/produced Shelly Berg’s landmark jazz tutor for junior high students entitled Chop-Monster 1 and Chop-Monster 2.  She also edited an adaptation for the elementary classroom called Chop-Monster, Jr. and was a freelance editor of Essentials of Jazz Theory (Alfred), Rhythm Section Director’s Workshop (Alfred), Meet the Great Jazz Legends (Alfred) and Jazz Pedagogy (Warner). She was simultaneously a marketing consultant to Boosey & Hawkes for two years and a licensing consultant to McGraw-Hill for their Share the Music K-8 series.

While working for the above organizations, Julia served for 10 years on the executive board of the Music Industry Conference and was actively involved in music advocacy efforts with the Music Educators National Association. 

Her passion for the performing arts is now channeled into fundraising for the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Miami and in that capacity she enjoys inspiring theatre patrons, donors and alumni to make their imprint on future generations of performing artists.

Phone: (305) 284-4895
E-mail: jberg@miami.edu