Spanish-Argentinian mezzo-soprano Julia Portela Piñón completed a residency as the first international singer of the Judith Neilson Young Artist Programme at Cape Town Opera. During the 2023/24 season, Julia’s operatic engagements in Cape Town included Flora Bervoix in Verdi’s La Traviata, La suora zelatrice in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, Zita in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, and Alisa in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, as well as the alto solo in Mozart’s Requiem.

Upon her return to Europe, Julia made her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in a project dedicated to the premiere of micro-operas directed by Àlex Ollé. In the 2025/26 season, she debuted the role of Dorabella (Così fan tutte) in Luxembourg under the direction of Umberto Finazzi and Daniele Piscopo, and had her Serbian debut at the Opera & Theatre Madlenianum in Belgrade as Tolomeo (Giulio Cesare) under the direction of Pedrag Gosta, with upcoming performances at the Grimeborn Opera Festival in London.

Born in Lugo, Spain, Julia studied for over a decade in London, UK, first at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Music. From the latter, she obtained a Bachelor of Music in Performance, a Master of Arts in Performance with Distinction and an Advanced Diploma in Opera Performance, generously supported by the Norman Ayrton Award.

Winner of the 3rd Prize and the Monteverdi Prize at the 1st Premio Orfeo d’Oro International Music Competition (Cremona, 2026), as well as First Prize winner of the Concurso Internacional de Solistas of the Festival Internacional de Música de Aguere (Tenerife, 2026), Julia has sung in the Final Live Rounds of the Tenor Viñas Contest (Barcelona, 2026), the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition (Jurmala, 2024) and the International Competition for Baroque Opera ‘Pietro Antonio Cesti’ (Innsbruck, 2024). Prizewinner of the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg International Singing Competition (Berlin, 2020) and the Marjorie Thomas Art of Song Prize (London, 2017), she has also been a Finalist at the Concorso Internazionale di Canto Marmo all’Opera (Carrara, 2025).

Past operatic appearances include Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea with Ensemble OrQuesta at the Grimeborn Opera Festival (2022), Tirinto in Handel’s Imeneo conducted by David Bates (2022), cover of Komponist in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos (2022), Concepcion in Ravel’s L’heure espagnole (2021), Zita in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (2021) and Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas conducted by Elizabeth Kenny (2021) with Royal Academy Opera in London, UK.

In orchestral solo engagements, Julia has performed with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Pontevedra premiering a new work in a tour across Santiago de Compostela, Lugo and Pontevedra, Spain (2026); the Banda Municipal de Música de Santiago de Compostela performing Falla’s El sombrero de tres picos (2026) and starring in an Opera Gala (2025); the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Vlad Iftinca in Waiblingen, Germany (2022); the Royal Academy Baroque Orchestra conducted by Masaaki Suzuki in a performance of Bach’s B minor mass (2019); and the City of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra with whom she performed Elgar’s Sea Pictures in Cambridge (2018).

Julia enjoys an extensive career in oratorio performance. Highlights as a soloist include Mozart’s Requiem (Santiago de Compostela, 2025 & Cape Town, 2023/24), Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Lugo, 2024 & London, 2022), Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia (Cambridge, 2020), Mozart’s Coronation Mass (Cape Town, 2024 & Cambridge, 2020), Bach’s St John Passion (Leith Hill Music Festival, Dorking, 2019), Mozart's Vesperae Solennes de Confessore and Haydn's Missa in Angustiis (Bath, 2019), and Bruckner’s Requiem (London, 2019), amongst others.

Aside from her performing career, Julia is a dedicated polyglot. She is trilingual in Spanish, Galician and English, fluent in Italian and French, and has a strong command of German and Russian.