Early life Raised in
Berkeley, California, Pollack was introduced to music through his parents, Susan Waterfall (an accomplished concert pianist), and Allan Pollack (a conductor, saxophonist, and music professor at
University of California, Berkeley). He began formal study of the piano at age of five with his mother, and was called a
child prodigy, able to play difficult pieces of
classical music well beyond his years. He attended The Crowden School in Berkeley, California, for his
middle school years, where he received training in orchestral playing,
chamber music,
harmony, and
counterpoint, as well as a courses in the
liberal arts. After completing high schooling in 2006, he was offered a full scholarship to
Berklee College of Music, but opted to instead attend
New York University in New York City. He released his second trio album,
Infinite Playground, to great critical acclaim in 2010. The album featured bassist Noah Garabedian and drummer Evan Hughes. The album showcased Pollack's growing interest in blending multiple genres with jazz improvisation and classical composition. It included Pollack's original pieces with "
My Funny Valentine" by Rodgers and Hart, "
Cherokee" by Ray Noble, and "
And I Love Her" by the Beatles. Pollack composed a three movement
piano concerto in 2012. It was premiered by the Camellia Symphony in Sacramento. The work's style and form drew heavily from
jazz,
minimalism, and
French impressionism. He also completed a
string quartet that was commissioned by the Telluride Chamber Music Festival and the Ives String Quartet. In 2014, Pollack premiered a new composition for orchestra entitled
Night Flower at the
Mendocino Music Festival.
2015–2018 In 2015, Pollack began exploring his interest in electronic music, synthesizers, sounds design and production, releasing music under the moniker "J3PO." The name came from his trio mate Evan Hughes: “He called me up one day and randomly left me a voicemail starting with ‘Hey J3PO’ – and ever since then that was my alter-ego music nickname. What’s cool is that if you look at the logo (designed by Emily Hoerdemann) the ‘3’ is actually a ‘w’ on its side. So you have J.W.PO which are my initials in addition to referencing the droid C3PO from ‘Star Wars,’ which I love.” He released
The 90s EP in 2016, a collection of nineties pop songs re-harmonized, rearranged, and sung on the talkbox. In 2017 he released three original songs in the same vein, entitled
Memory EP. Starting in 2016 Pollack joined New York's celebrated Lower East Side underground hip-hop band
The Lesson GK, a weekly jam session that seamlessly blends elements of experimental Hip-Hop, Jazz, Funk and Soul. In 2018 he began touring with legendary bassist and composer,
Marcus Miller, joining his residency at The Blue Note Tokyo, and continuing on for several tours of the United States and Europe. He began working closely with
Clavia Nord Keyboards, designing a signature patch library for the Nord Stage 3. He also released a signature pack for the Nord Wave 2. In 2020, Julian scored the indie film
The Sound of the Wind, directed and written by Jared Douglas. During the Coronavirus pandemic, Julian released a free bank of sounds for the Disco DSP synthesizer OB-Xd. In 2021, Julian was asked to create presets for the Softube Model 84 Polyphonic Synthesizer which is a circuit-modeled emulation of a 1984 six-voice synth. He signed with
Ropeadope Records for his full length album,
MAINS, released June 4, 2021. ==Discography==