Julian regularly plays the organ for weddings, church services and choral society concerts. He is Assistant Director of Music at the church of St Thomas-on-The Bourne in Farnham, Surrey, which has a strong musical tradition and maintains regular choral services with a choir of boys and men, as well as a girl's choir and a chamber choir.

Julian was born in Aldershot and was educated the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, where he was a Music Scholar. Whilst at Durham he was Organ Scholar at the College of St Hild and St Bede, as well as Organist at St John's Church, Neville's Cross, Durham. He studied the organ with Keith Wright, the assistant organist at Durham cathedral. He won six prizes in the Associate of the Royal College of Organists diploma including the prestigious Limpus prize, and subsequently won the Harding and Durrant prizes in the Fellowship examination.

After leaving Durham, he continued his organ studies with Anne Page in Cambridge. He has given recitals at the cathedrals of Durham, Dunblane and St Giles (Edinburgh), as well as in various parish churches. He has attended study courses on historical organs in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Latvia. He has also produced a CD of the Forster and Andrews organ at All Saints Parish Church, Fleet, and owns two harpsichords and a virginal, although he now has a day job is in the pharmaceutical industry.