With a passion for music and collaboration, Catherine Joy is a composer for film, media and live performance. She won Best Documentary Score for the uplifting feature documentary Gold Balls. She recently scored the documentary Naughty Books (Hulu) which features narration by Aisha Tyler, Allison Tolman and Aimee Garcia, and resulted in an ASCAP Composers Choice Award nomination. Her latest feature, Potato Dreams Of America had its world premiere at SXSW 2021. Catherine was also the score producer and lead orchestrator on the Oscar-nominated score for Minari.
Catherine has scored a number of series, starting with Capitol Hill which began on youtube and then was televised throughout Canada and Europe. She also scored the dramedies Abby & Tabby Alone In The Desert and No Matter What. In 2020 Catherine worked on the History channel three night miniseries WASHINGTON and led the Joy Music House team in score producing Homecoming Season 2 (Amazon Studios). Most recently she scored the short documentary animation series There’s No ‘I’ In Island (Screen Australia). Catherine is the founder and CEO of Joy Music House, a full service score production company and the President for the Alliance for Women Film Composers.
Catherine was part of the music team on notable recent projects. She was the Lead Orchestrator on the Crunchyroll original anime series High Guardian Spice and Onyx Equinox, set for release in 2020/21. She score supervised and orchestrated on Sundance award-winning feature Minari and the emmy-nominated scores RBG and Love, Gilda. She also score supervised the HBO emmy-winning documentary At The Heart of Gold and feature Son of The South executive produced by Spike Lee and directed by his long-time editor Barry Alexander Brown. Catherine is currently co-scoring the E-Line Media / BBC Studios ocean exploration video game Beyond Blue.
She had two chamber concert works premiere in 2019: Just Breathe with the Helix Collective and We are Machine with Kroma Quartet as part of the LA Chamber House series. She is also working on a Ballet in collaboration with choreographer Rival Tribe which will premiere in October, 2019. Her work for Didgeridoo and chamber orchestra For Those Who Have Walked Ahead premiered at Benaroya Recital Hall as part of Celebrate World Music in March 2013. Catherine’s orchestral work Artist and The Muse premiered in 2012.
Catherine graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts. She then completed her Masters of Music from Boston University and also went through the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring program in 2011. Catherine is from Tasmania, Australia. She moved to the United States in 1998 to pursue a career in music. Catherine plays many instruments including violin, piano, and guitar.
Catherine is a board member of the Alliance for Women Film Composers.
