Julia Rahm

Voice & Piano Lessons in Portland with Julia Rahm

Primary Instruments: Voice & Piano
Also Teaches: Harmonium & Beginner Guitar
Locations Served: Portland, OR and surrounding communities
Teaching Experience: 9+ years of private music instruction

Why We Recommend Julia for Voice & Piano Lessons in Portland

Julia Rahm is a vocalist, pianist, composer, performer, and music teacher with nine years of private teaching experience. With a Master of Music in Voice Performance and a musical background spanning classical voice, opera, musical theater, jazz, folk, experimental music, piano, and harmonium, Julia brings both extensive training and a deeply personal approach to music education.

She teaches students of all ages, but particularly enjoys working with high school students, adults interested in developing a deeper relationship with their voice, and younger children who thrive with a patient, compassionate, and exploratory approach.

Julia understands from her own experience that music can be transformative. Her goal is not simply to teach students how to sing the right notes or play the correct keys. She wants students to discover their own creativity, develop healthier technique, and gradually become more comfortable expressing something uniquely their own through music.

Areas of Expertise & Teaching Focus

• Voice Lessons: Healthy vocal technique, confidence, musical expression, interpretation, creativity, and developing a more personal relationship with the voice.
• Piano Lessons: Technique, musicianship, musical expression, creativity, and learning repertoire that genuinely interests the student.
• Harmonium: Chord-based harmonium instruction for students interested in exploring the instrument and its role in vocal and contemplative music.
• Beginner Guitar: Foundational chords, fingerpicking, accompaniment, and introductory guitar skills.
• Vocal Expression: Helping students move beyond simply producing notes and discover a freer, more authentic relationship with singing.
• Classical Voice: Drawing from graduate-level voice performance training and additional classical study in both the United States and France.
• Improvisation & Creativity: Encouraging students to listen to their musical impulses, experiment, and develop confidence creating in the moment.
• Performance: Helping students bring greater confidence, presence, and personal expression into singing and playing for others.

A Teaching Philosophy Centered on Unique Expression

Julia believes every student has something uniquely their own to express through music. Her role as a teacher is to help students discover what that expression sounds and feels like while giving them the technique necessary to explore it with greater ease and freedom.

One of the first questions behind her teaching is simple: What music inspires you?

Rather than separating technical study from a student’s interests, Julia follows the thread of what naturally speaks to each person. Technique, musicianship, creativity, and self-inquiry can then develop alongside music the student already feels connected to.

For Julia, this process is especially meaningful in voice lessons. Singing can feel vulnerable because the instrument is part of the person themselves. She works to create an environment where students can become more curious about their voice without feeling that every sound needs to be judged as right or wrong.

Voice Lessons for Adults

Julia particularly enjoys working with adults who feel a longstanding desire to sing, including complete beginners who may never have considered themselves singers.

She also works with experienced musicians who want to develop a more intimate connection with their own voice and individual expression.

Alongside healthier vocal technique, Julia helps adult and adolescent students explore ways to move beyond an overly critical mindset, listen more carefully to physical sensations and musical impulses, and approach vulnerable moments in the learning process with greater patience and compassion.

Her goal is to create an environment where students can develop technical skills without losing the emotional and creative qualities that made them want to sing in the first place.

A Playful Approach for Younger Musicians

With younger children, Julia adapts her teaching style to create a relaxed and low-pressure environment. Games, playful exercises, experimentation, and musical exploration help students learn important concepts without making lessons feel overly rigid.

Her approach allows younger students to develop skills while maintaining curiosity and enjoyment. Instead of treating mistakes as failures, lessons become opportunities to listen, explore, try something different, and discover how music works.

This can make Julia an especially good fit for children who benefit from a compassionate teacher who gives them time and space to become comfortable with the learning process.

Education & Professional Vocal Training

Julia earned her Master of Music in Voice Performance from Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts in 2019.

She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Sarah Lawrence College in 2014, where her studies included Theatre, Music, and French.

Julia’s classical vocal education also took her internationally. From 2015 to 2016, she spent a year studying classical voice at the École Normale de Musique de Paris in Paris, France.

Additional training and performance programs have included:

• Crittenden Opera Workshop — Bethesda, Maryland — 2017
• Franco-American Vocal Academy — Périgueux, France — 2016
• California Opera Association — Fresno, California — 2015
• Astoria Music Festival Apprenticeship — Astoria, Oregon — 2014

A Musical Journey Across Genres

Julia began singing at age six and started piano lessons at eleven. She added guitar at sixteen and began playing harmonium around age thirty.

Her musical path has never been limited to one genre. Her experiences have moved through musical theater, opera, jazz, folk music, experimental composition, ensemble singing, and contemporary performance.

That range allows Julia to approach students as individual musicians rather than expecting everyone to fit into the same musical tradition.

A student interested in classical singing may need something very different from an adult exploring their voice for the first time, just as a young pianist may respond differently from a singer-songwriter interested in accompaniment and original music.

Composer, Recording Artist & Poet

Julia’s creative work extends beyond teaching and performance. She is a composer and recording artist whose experimental concept album, Wound Tapestry, was released in 2024.

She is also a published poet, bringing another dimension of language, storytelling, imagery, and emotional expression into her creative life.

These experiences inform Julia’s belief that music is much more than performing notes accurately. Music can give people a way to encounter joy, grief, hope, fear, courage, love, anger, vulnerability, and connection—and transform those experiences into something creative.

Connected to Portland’s Creative Community

Julia remains actively involved in Portland’s music and arts community. She sings with the choir Earth Women and performs musical and theatrical improvisation with Portland Action Theater through its Secret Seed salon.

She also performs her original music around Portland alongside Celtic chants and works by Hildegard, while collaborating with other musicians and artists including For the Living Earth and Ayla Realta.

Remaining active as a performer and creator allows Julia to bring an evolving artistic perspective into her teaching. Students are learning from someone who continues to explore her own relationship with music rather than treating musical education as something that eventually ends.

Music as Connection

At the heart of Julia’s teaching is the belief that music connects us with something deeply human.

Technique gives students tools, but those tools ultimately make it possible to communicate something. Through singing and playing, students can explore emotion, creativity, vulnerability, imagination, and connection in ways that may not always be available through words alone.

Whether Julia is introducing a young child to piano, helping a high school student strengthen their musicianship, or guiding an adult toward a voice they have wanted to explore for years, her goal is to create space for both musical growth and authentic expression.

Start Voice or Piano Lessons in Portland

Students and families throughout Portland can learn with Julia through personalized In Home music lessons.

Learn more about our music lessons in Portland, explore piano lessons, discover why music lessons can make a lasting difference, or register for lessons today.