ABOUT ME
Photo credit: Sharleen Christie
200 Word Bio
Joyce To is an Australian percussionist, improviser, and new media/sound artist, who explores relationships between aesthetics and ecology through experimental art making. She considers the tensions between aesthetic representations of the natural world in digital media and the material consequences of art-making practices. She aims to create pathways of reflection on contemporary environmental and social discourse through artistic investigation, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Her performance career spans across the globe, having performed in Australia, Japan, America, and Canada. Joyce’s output includes presenting works at conferences and international festivals, premiering 50+ new works, and collaborating with improvisers, artists, composers, dancers, and writers.
Fukushima – In Search of New Light, a project led by Dr. Kumi Kato from Wakayama University, has been a key career highlight. While touring across Fukushima, Japan, Joyce engaged in community discussions, panels and performances with Japanese poet Wago Ryoichi and Australian eurythmist Jan Baker-Finch. The project fostered new perspectives on the intersections of art-making, tourism, community and environment.
Joyce has trained as a percussionist in Australia and Canada. She holds a Masters in Performance from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Music in Performance from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.
100 Word Bio
Joyce To is an Australian percussionist, improviser, and new media/sound artist, who explores relationships between aesthetics and ecology through experimental art making. She considers the tensions between aesthetic representations of the natural world in digital media and the material consequences of art-making practices. She aims to create pathways of reflection on contemporary environmental and social discourse through artistic investigation, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Her performance career spans across the globe, having performed in Australia, Japan, America, and Canada. Joyce’s output includes presenting works at conferences and international festivals, premiering 50+ new works, and collaborating with improvisers, artists, composers, dancers, and writers.
Joyce To is an Australian percussionist, improviser and new media/sound artist, who explores relationships between aesthetics and ecology through experimental art making. She considers the tensions between aesthetic representations of the natural world in digital media and the material consequences of art-making practices. She aims to create pathways of reflection on contemporary environmental and social discourse through artistic investigation, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Her performance career spans across the globe, having performed in Australia, Japan, America and Canada. Joyce’s output includes presenting works at conferences and international festivals, premiering over 50 new works, and collaborating with improvisers, artists, composers, dancers, and writers.
Fukushima – In Search of New Light, a project led by Dr. Kumi Kato from Wakayama University, has been a key career highlight. While touring across Fukushima, Japan, Joyce engaged in community discussions, panels and performances with Japanese poet Wago Ryoichi and Australian eurythmist Jan Baker-Finch. Together, the trio captured audiences at the Iwaki Art Museum, Iitate Wolf Shrine and engaged at various community locations such as the local black smith, stone mason and farms. The project fostered new perspectives on the intersections of art-making, tourism, community and environment.
Most recently, Joyce co-curated a digital concert series titled ‘Nothing Else Left to Read’, that explored new online mediums as a basis for live performative frameworks. The series focused on celebrating young artists, new compositions and innovative developments during the 2020 pandemic. The concerts have served as a platform to support the local young artist community with digital adaptation by providing workshops to help sustain live performance opportunities.
In 2019, Joyce co-founded Concept Ensemble, an Australian Brisbane-based contemporary-experimental chamber ensemble. Concept Ensemble has since received Audience Choice at the Queensland International Chamber Music Competition 2019 and have been at the forefront of the Brisbane new music scene with their collaborative call-for-scores project. In their first year alone, the ensemble performed 9 world premieres, 13 Australian premieres, and released an EP featuring improvisations at Tyalgum Music Festival 2019 in collaboration with Dr. Charalutha Mani and Jasna Spiranovic.
As a soloist and chamber musician, Joyce has performed and worked with a range of internationally renowned artists, collectives and organisations including; Steve Schick, Tim Munro, Jan Williams, Aiyun Huang, Tenzin Choegyal, Nicholas Photinos, Wago Ryoichi, Erik Griswold, Vanessa Tomlinson, Charulatha Mani, Red Sky Performance, Continuum Contemporary Music and with members of the Bang on a Can All Stars.
Joyce has trained as a percussionist in Australia and Canada. She holds a Masters in Performance from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Music in Performance from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. She has studied closely with Dr. Aiyun Huang, Dr. Vanessa Tomlinson, Beverley Johnston, Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, Nozomi Omote and Tom O’Kelly. Joyce has also completed a Diploma in Languages majoring in Japanese from Griffith University.