Julia Marcell (born 1982) is a Polish singer-songwriter and pianist.
Career
Marcell was born Julia Górniewicz in
Olsztyn
Olsztyn ( , ) is a city on the Łyna River in northern Poland. It is the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, and is a city with powiat rights, city with county rights. The population of the city was estimated at 169,793 residents
Olsz ...
, Poland in 1982. Her father, Józef Górniewicz, is a Polish pedagogue and was the dean of the
University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn from 2008 to 2012. She wrote songs since she was 14 years old, and circa 2007 she learned how to play the piano. In 2007, she released her first album, the currently out-of-print
extended play
An extended play (EP) is a Sound recording and reproduction, musical recording that contains more tracks than a Single (music), single but fewer than an album. Contemporary EPs generally contain up to eight tracks and have a playing time of 1 ...
''Storm''.
In October 2007, with the help of fans from around the world, she obtained a sum of US$50,000 (through the website
Sellaband
Sellaband was a music website that allowed artists to raise the money from their fans and the SellaBand community in order to record a professional album. Sellaband used the mechanisms of crowdfunding and was to be seen as a Direct-to-Fan/ fan- ...
) to record her first studio album. Titled ''It Might Like You'', it was released in Germany in 2009 and produced by
Moses Schneider, who previously worked with bands such as
Turbostaat,
Beatsteaks,
Kreator
Kreator is a German thrash metal band from Essen, formed in 1982. Their current line-up consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Mille Petrozza, Miland "Mille" Petrozza, drummer Jürgen Reil, Jürgen "Ventor" Reil, lead guitarist Sami Yli- ...
and
Tocotronic
Tocotronic is a German rock band formed in 1993. Similar to Blumfeld or Die Sterne they are considered a part of the Hamburger Schule (''Hamburg School'') movement. They are influential for bands such as Wir sind Helden.
History
Tocotronic ...
.
In 2008, Marcell sang a duet with
Cuban American
Cuban Americans ( or ) are Americans who immigrated from or are descended from immigrants from Cuba. As of 2023, Cuban Americans were the fourth largest Hispanic and Latino American group in the United States after Mexican Americans, Stateside ...
dark cabaret singer
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...
, named "This Sea". The song appears on his album ''
To the Bottom of the Sea''. On the same album, Voltaire makes a cover of her song "Accordion Player".
She collaborated with Voltaire once more in 2014, on his album ''
Raised by Bats
''Raised by Bats'' is the tenth studio album by Cuban Americans, Cuban American dark cabaret singer Aurelio Voltaire, Voltaire, released in 2014. The album's production was Crowdfunding, crowdfunded by Voltaire's fans all over the world via a succ ...
'', on the track "The Devil and Mr. Jones".
On 3 October 2011 she released a second studio album, entitled ''June'', which brought a big change in style and saw Marcell play with rhythm and expand her sound with the addition of electronic instruments. ''June''s first single, "Matrioszka", was released on 7 August 2011 as a teaser. The music video for "Matrioszka" was released on 27 August 2011. The second single for ''June'', "CTRL", was released on 30 November 2011. The third single, "I Wanna Get on Fire", was released on 20 June 2012, alongside a music video. For ''June'', Marcell was awarded with the prestigious
Paszport Polityki
Paszport Polityki (Polityka's Passport) is an annual Polish cultural award presented by the weekly magazine '' Polityka'' since 1993.
It is presented in six major categories: literature
Literature is any collection of Writing, written wor ...
prize in 2011, in the "Popular Music" category, and in 2012 she was nominated to seven
Fryderyk
The Fryderyk is the annual award in Polish music. Its name refers to the original Polish spelling variant of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin's first name. Its status in the Polish public can be compared to the US Grammy and British BRIT Awar ...
s, winning one of them.
In 2013 she collaborated with theatre director
Krzysztof Garbaczewski by providing the music to his adaptations of Marcin Cecko's ''Kamienne niebo zamiast gwiazd'' and
Witold Gombrowicz
Witold Marian Gombrowicz (August 4, 1904 – July 24, 1969) was a Polish writer and playwright. His works are characterised by deep psychological analysis, a certain sense of paradox and absurd, anti-nationalism, anti-nationalist flavor. In 1937, ...
's ''Kronos''.
In 2014 she composed the soundtrack of
Przemysław Wojcieszek's film ''Jak całkowicie zniknąć''.
Her third studio album, ''Sentiments'', was released on 6 October 2014. On 10 September 2014 she released a music video for one of the tracks that would appear on the album, "Manners".
On 5 January 2016 Marcell announced on her official Facebook page that she began work on her fourth album, ''Proxy'', which was eventually released on 11 March 2016.
Julia Marcell – Facebook (5 January 2016)
On the same day she released the promotional single "Andrew" on iTunes
iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
.
Marcell currently resides in Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, Germany.
Discography
Studio albums
Music videos
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marcell, Julia
1982 births
Living people
Polish keyboardists
Polish women keyboardists
Polish women guitarists
Mystic Production artists
Polish pop singers
Polish women pop singers
Polish pianists
Polish women pianists
Polish expatriates in Germany
English-language singers from Poland
21st-century Polish singers
21st-century Polish women singers
21st-century Polish guitarists
21st-century women guitarists
Polish singer-songwriters
Polish women singer-songwriters