Julie Ann Giroux was born December 12, 1961, in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Being in a traveling Air Force family, she was raised in Fairhaven, MA; San Fernando Valley, CA; Camden and Harmony Grove, AR; Phoenix, Arizona; and Monroe, Louisiana. She received her formal education from Louisiana State University, where she majored in music performance.

She studied composition and/or worked alongside notable composers such as John Williams, Bill Conti, Jerry Goldsmith, Greig McRitchie, Charlie Bernstein, Jack Eskew, and Ashley Irwin, just to name a few. Julie is an accomplished performer on piano and horn, but her first love is composition. She began playing the piano at the age of three and had her first published work for piano at the age of nine.

In 1985, she started composing, orchestrating, and conducting music for television and films. Just hours after her college graduation, she accepted a job working under Academy Award-winning composer Bill Conti in Los Angeles. Her first project was working on the music for the Emmy Award-winning miniseries North and South. That was followed soon by work on the television series Dynasty, The Colbys, Hill Street Blues, and Cagney and Lacey, as well as the films Karate Kid II, April Fool’s Day, Blaze, White Men Can’t Jump, and Broadcast News.

Julie has also been privileged to collaborate with dozens of film composers, producers, and celebrities, including Samuel Goldwyn, Martin Scorsese, Chevy Chase, and Clint Eastwood. She has also arranged for Celine Dion, Paula Abdul, Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli, Madonna, Reba McEntire, Little Richard, Billy Crystal, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Paul Newman, Harry Connick Jr., and many, many others.

She received her first Emmy nomination in 1988 for North and South Part II – Love and War, and over the next three years was nominated each year for her arranging and original compositions for the Academy Awards show. To date, Julie has well over 100 film, television, orchestral, and video game credits and has been nominated for an Emmy several times.

In 1992, she won her first Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Direction for the 64th Annual Academy Awards, ABC. She was the first woman and youngest person ever to win the award in that category. She has won the same Emmy Award a total of three times.

Julie is an extremely well-rounded composer, writing works for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, wind ensembles, choirs, soloists, brass and woodwind quintets, and many other serious and commercial formats. She has composed and published numerous works for professional wind ensembles, military bands, colleges, and public schools and has conducted her music worldwide. She regularly makes appearances as both a speaker and clinician at many national clinics, including the American Band College and the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic. Julie began to compose heavily for concert bands and orchestras starting in 1992. Currently, Mrs. Giroux has well over 200 titles.

In May of 2018, Julie was named to the J.W. Pepper 19 Groundbreaking Women Composers. This honor was only bestowed upon seven currently living composers. Julie is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the first woman composer inducted into the prestigious American Bandmasters Association (ABA) in 2010, and an honorary member of Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma, where she received the Distinguished Service to Music Medal in 2017. In 2021, Julie was awarded the Midwest Clinic Medal of Honor.

In January of 2021, Julie was programmed by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band for the Presidential Inauguration. Her piece, Integrity Fanfare and March, was performed for the entrance of Vice President Kamala Harris. This was the first time that a woman had ever been programmed for the presidential inaugural ceremony. Mrs. Giroux was programmed again for the 2025 presidential inauguration, this time with her Medalist Fanfare.

On June 21, 2025, Julie Giroux was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Women Songwriters, Composers, Performers and Producers. Julie is an extremely prolific composer and continues to compose, orchestrate, and arrange for television, movies, video games, wind bands, and orchestras.