About Me

About Julia Riew

Julia Riew is a Korean-American composer, lyricist, librettist, and writer from St. Louis and currently based in New York City. She is primarily known for her musical Dive (previously known as Shimcheong: A Folktale), which amassed over 100k followers online and over 16 million streams of its titular number in Korea.

Julia graduated from Harvard University in May 2022 and is First-Year in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. In her first year out of college, she has been named the 2022 Fred Ebb Award winner, Playbill’s Featured Songwriter of the Month, a Woman to Watch on Broadway, and the recipient of the 2022 Harvardwood Artist Launch Fellowship under the mentorship of composer Laurence O’Keefe (Legally Blonde, Heathers). Julia was also the inaugural recipient of the Musicians United for Social Equity (MUSE) Linda Twine Scholarship (2021), a member of the first MUSE One-on-One Mentorship Program (2021-22) (mentor: Jeanine Tesori), and a member of the inaugural Maestra Music Mentorship Program (2020-21) (mentor: Deborah Wicks La Puma).

Despite her love for musical theater, Julia spent her first two years of college as a pre-med student before finding her footing as a joint-concentrator in Theater and Music. In her sophomore year, observing a lack of Asian students in theater, Julia co-founded the Harvard College Asian Student Arts Project (ASAP), a club created to provide the resources and community for Asian student artists. She co-wrote their first production, a musical called The East Side and later performed as “Paulette” in ASAP’s all-Asian production of Legally Blonde: The Musical, which received national recognition in fall 2021.

Her original work has been featured at the American Repertory Theater, 54 Below, Summerstock Austin Texas, The Coterie in Kansas City, Harvard University’s Farkas Hall and Agassiz Theater, AMAS Musical Theater, The UNC-Greensboro School of Theater, Nora Theater Company at Central Square Theater, The Harvard Art Lab, University of Missouri, The Community Music School of Webster University, John Burroughs High School. She is currently working on several projects for theater, film, and TV, including the development of her musical Dive, a musical theater K-Drama, a YA fantasy novel in collaboration with her brother Brad, a graphic-novel inspired song cycle, and more. Her past works include Alice’s Wonderland, an original musical co-written by J Quinton Johnson (Hamilton on Broadway, In the Heights at the Kennedy Center), Jack and the Beanstalk: A Musical Adventure (The A.R.T. 2020 Family Musical), and Thumbelina: A Little Musical (The A.R.T. 2019 Family Musical).