Julie Scolnik is a concert flutist and the founding artistic director of Mistral Music (www.MistralMusic.org), a chamber music series that since 1997 has been known for its virtuosic artists and imaginative programming and the personal rapport she establishes with audiences. She lives in Boston with her husband, physicist Michael Brower, and her two cats, Daphne and Chloë. They have two adult children, Sophie and Sasha Scolnik-Brower, also musicians.
"Not every true story is like a good novel, but this one is. Not every memoir of first love has a satisfying ending, but this one does. The confluence of first love with becoming an artist makes this memoir special.” —John Irving
“Julie Scolnik’s beautiful page turner of a memoir captures with beauty and rare insight the power of music, words, and Paris to drive love to madness. To read her pitch perfect writing is to relive the exhilarations and vulnerabilities of one’s twenties.” — Judith Coffin, author of Sex, Love, and Letters: Writing Simone de Beauvoir
“Paris Blue, Julie Scolnik’s memoir of first love in Paris, is written with the tender romanticism of Wordsworth and the devastating realism of Flaubert. Her lyrical writing about music transforms these discordant halves into a compelling whole, creating a dazzling love letter to a life lived in music.” —Linda Katherine Cutting, author of Memory Slips
"Paris Blue gives melody to our common fancy: that Paris is where all great romances play out. Julie Scolnik’s memoir, recalling for us the myopia of innocence, returns us to our own first loves while establishing itself as a riveting tale both unique and universal.” —Gregory Maguire, novelist, and author of Wicked
Julie Scolnik's memoir, Paris Blue, brings full spectrum color to a love affair with Paris, music, and a man whose limited vision couldn't keep her from shining. Filled with sensuousness, sound, and light, as well as the hard edge of truth, this story of first love grips the reader tight. —Jennifer Rosner, author of The Yellow Bird Sings
