Active as a composer and performer, Molly Joyce’s music has been described as “impassioned” (The Washington Post), written to “superb effect” (The Wire), and “vibrant, inventive music that communicates straight from the heart” (Prufrock’s Dilemma). Her works have been commissioned and performed by several distinguished ensembles including the New World Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the New Juilliard, Decoda, and Contemporaneous ensembles. Additionally, her work has been performed at the Bang on a Can Marathon and VisionIntoArt’s FERUS Festival, and featured in outlets such as Pitchfork, WNYC’s New Sounds, Q2 Music, I Care If You Listen, and The Log Journal.
As a performer, Molly often plays on her vintage Magnus toy organ, an instrument she bought on eBay and has performed on in multiple capacities; including solo, with toy piano, and with a beatboxer. She is additionally active as a DJ, spinning under the moniker “DJ MJ.”
While in residence at The Watermill Center, Molly Joyce develops her first full-length album Breaking and Entering, which will be composed and performed entirely on her vintage toy organ. Bought on eBay about five years ago, this instrument has quickly become a primary focus in Joyce’s artistic work, not only because of the unique sound and tuning that it produces, but because it physically fits her body as a performer well due to her physically impaired left hand.
Thus with the organ and the music she compose for it, Joyce aims to engage and challenge her impairment, an act she hopes will allow for a true “breaking and entering” of her body to a realm beyond ability in and of itself. The album is not concerned with functional or dysfunctional, but rather all the in-betweens and the multitudes of possibilities that emerge from such a source.
In Process @ The Watermill Center invites the community to engage with our Artists-in-Residence on Saturday afternoons through open rehearsals, workshops, studio visits, lectures or artist talks.
Watermill’s mission is to provide artists and thinkers the opportunity to focus on the development of their work and practice. Artists-in-Residence have gone on to perform at venues and festivals including the New Museum, Roulette, PS122, American Realness, Clocktower Gallery, Performa, Vienna’s Donaufestival, Kampnagel in Hamburg, CPR – Center for Performance Research, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center.
March 3, 2018
photos © Maria Baranova-Suzuki
