Joy Lisney is a multi-faceted musician, combining composition with a performing career as cellist and conductor.

As a cellist, Joy has performed in major concert halls including the Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall 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, to contemporary concertos and world premieres by composers including Mark Anthony Turnage, Cecilia Macdowall, Jan Vriend and Judith Weir. 

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. She has also played principal cello in orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the London Mozart Players. As a soloist she has worked with conductors including Howard Williams and Sir Stephen Cleobury as well as directing concerti from the cello.

Joy has also explored a wide variety of repertoire as a conductor, from world premieres for string orchestra to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and in 2019, gave the first London performance the Busoni Concerto for Piano, Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in twenty years. In 2022, she was one of five conductors selected to conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra in Marin Alsop’s Women Conductors Masterclass at the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, she has regularly conducted her own compositions, which also include works written for artists such as the Mithras Trio, Barbican Quartet, Arditti Quartet and Ensemble Recherche. 

Joy completed her PhD in composition at Cambridge University in 2022 and her most recent work, Petrichor, was premiered at the Wigmore Hall live on BBC Radio 3 earlier this month. She has begun to explore the world of scoring for visual media, including collaborating with Breanna Box on a short film premiered on nowness.com and is employed as a freelance composer for Jacquie Lawson e-cards. 

In her spare time, Joy is an avid sportswoman. During her time at university she was awarded Full Blues in cricket, athletics, cycling and lacrosse, and she continues to compete in 400m hurdles between her concerts.