Julia Keefe

Award winning jazz vocalist and actor Julia Keefe, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, has been turning heads and dazzling audiences at jazz clubs from New York to Paris, and from Washington DC to Los Angeles. Julia was born in 1989 in Seattle, WA. She has lived on both coasts of the U.S. and her current home is Spokane, WA. Julia began singing jazz while in junior high school in Spokane. She was a participant at the annual Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival in Moscow, ID for five years as a soloist and in award winning choir and ensemble groups. In 2007, Julia won an outstanding vocal soloist award at the Lionel Hampton Festival. She continued her jazz training at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music, graduating with honors and earning her Bachelors in jazz vocal performance. In 2009, Julia performed a tribute concert "Thoroughly Modern: Mildred Bailey Songs," with the Jerrol Pennerman Octet on the National Mall in Washington D.C. at the National Museum of the American Indian in a featured event of the Smithsonian Institution's National Jazz Appreciation Month. Her efforts to have Mildred Bailey inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame at Lincoln Center have drawn national attention from the media, including National Public Radio. Julia's campaign on Mildred Bailey's behalf has also received support from the Idaho State Legislature, Governor Butch Otter, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, and the National Congress of American Indians. After a three-month stay in Paris, followed by a three-year stay in Los Angeles, Julia returned to Spokane to teach jazz voice at Gonzaga University. Julia made her on-screen debut in the first season of SyFy's Z Nation, as Mary, a cult extremist turned suicide zombie. She most recently was in Minnesota filming the indie dramedy, Virginia, Minnesota. In addition to her love of jazz and acting for film, Julia is also an avid stage actor and cabaret/burlesque performer.