Julia Lichten enjoys a varied career as soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, and teacher and coach in the New York area. She received degrees from Harvard-Radcliffe and the New England Conservatory, followed by two years of study at the Mannes College of Music. Her major teachers were Mischa Nieland and Paul Tobias. A member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra since 1995, she has toured as a soloist with Orpheus, as well as with Musicians from Marlboro and the American Chamber Players.

She has performed at the festivals of Marlboro, Tanglewood, Taos, Library of Congress, Caramoor, Rockport, and Evian; performs frequently with the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society; and has taught at Kneisel Hall, the Mannes Beethoven Institute, and the Perlman Music Program. An active recitalist, she has performed in such venues as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton universities and toured Europe under State Department sponsorship as an Artistic Ambassador. She has recorded for the Marlboro Recording Society, Arabesque, Koch International Classics, Music Masters, Sony Classical, and Deutsche Grammophon. A member of the Manhattan School of Music cello faculty since 1989, she also serves on the faculty of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College.