Cellist Joy Lisney at SMITF Friday 27th May

Joy Lisney is a multi-faceted musician, combining her cello playing with a career in composition and conducting.

As a cellist, Joy has performed in the major European concert halls including the Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Leipzig Gewandhaus as well as three consecutive sold-out recitals at London’s Southbank Centre. Her programmes range from her own arrangement of the Bach Chaconne, through the core repertoire to contemporary concertos and world premieres by composers including Mark Anthony Turnage, Cecilia Macdowall, Jan Vriend and Judith Weir, as well as her own compositions. A passionate advocate of new music, Joy has commissioned two new works from the Dutch composer Jan Vriend, the first of which she recorded on her debut CD in 2012. Most recently, she has been selected as a 2021 City Music Foundation Artist.

Alongside her solo engagements Joy performs regularly in a chamber music setting and has worked with artists including the Allegri, Dante and Endellion Quartets, Michael Whight, James Gilchrist and Dame Emma Kirkby. As a soloist she has worked with conductors including Howard Williams and Sir Stephen Cleobury as well as directing concerti from the cello.

This led Joy into conducting and she founded the Seraphin Project orchestra while studying composition at Cambridge University. After conducting much of the string orchestra repertoire Joy expanded the orchestra for performances of large-scale works including Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and the first London performance of the Busoni Concerto for Piano, Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in twenty years. In addition, she has regularly conducted her own compositions, which also include works written for artists such as the Arditti Quartet and Ensemble Recherche.

Joy plays on a Seraphin violoncello generously lent by Beare Violins.