Australian-born and Los Angeles-based Sophie Giuliani is a 23-year-old session guitarist of high order, having played with Olivia Rodrigo, Empress Of and Mayer Hawthorne among others, and she recently took to the Coachella stage with R&B pop artist Thuy. She is also a popular online guitar tutor (check out ). But her route to guitar playing took some surprising turns.
“My interest in music came from ballet,” Sophie explains. “I hated it and was more interested in the music being played, so then I did a hip-hop class. But once I started playing guitar I knew it was something I really wanted to do.
” Sophie didn’t hang about – by the time high school hit in Victoria, Australia, she was already thinking ahead. “By 14 or 15, I was looking into schools in the US,” she says. “With social media these days, there was already a community of players and I was watching people who study at Berklee and Musicians Institute, so I already had the dream of coming to America, that idea was circulating.
And then I watched the whole John Mayer thing and saw that he went to Berklee...
” She stops and laughs: “It was only for [a few] months, so maybe you can’t count that. But all the way through high school I was trying to get as good as possible to make an opportunity.” This drive has seen Sophie good with her now being established in LA, and her musical journey matches miles travelled.
“The first guitarist I knew was Slash,” she says, “but then someone gifted me the.