Julio López was born in 1980 in Honduras. He began his musical studies at the Escuela de Música Victoriano López, studying the viola there with Ruben Moncada. In 1997/1998 he was principal violist in the Symphony and Chamber Orchestra of San Pedro Sula in Honduras. In 1999 Julio López received a viola scholarship to attend the University of Southern Mississippi, where he studied until 2002 with Michael Kimber. In 2001 and 2002 he was a prize winner at the William T. Gower Awards Competition in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and in 2006 he received the 1st prize at the International Villa Llanes Competition in Asturias, Spain. He continued his studies with Wolfran Christ in 2003 at the Music Academy in Freiburg graduating in 2007 cum laude. Julio López also received further important motivation from Roberto Diaz, Hartmut Rohde, Walter Küssner, Csaba Erdelyi, Yuri Gandelsman and Alexander Brussulovsky. Julio López has appeared as soloist with the USM Chamber Orchestra in the United States, the Orquesta Sinfonica Juvenil del Ecuador and the Camerata de Cuerda of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. His chamber music partners at the Villa Musica and The Gustav Mahler Academy have included such artists as Gerhard Schulz, Klaus Stoll, Nicolas Chumachenco, Eszter Haffner, Patrick Demenga, Tamás Várga and Robert Levin. Besides his activities in the Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig Julio López has been a member of the Munich Philharmonic since 2007.
