Season 2 - Episode 19: Catherine Joy - Be Careful How You Represent Yourself

This week I am talking with composer Catherine Joy.  Catherine is the founder and CEO of Joy Music House, which is a full service score production company in L.A.. She is also the Vice President for the Alliance for Women Film Composers. Her music has been featured on projects for Netflix, Amazon and HBO to name a few.  Today we are talking about the importance of having a mentor when starting your career, the difference between, composing, arranging and orchestrating a project and the importance of how you represent yourself when connecting with clients and other composers you want to work with.

Sponsors: Edenbrooke Productions - We offer consulting services and are offering listeners a 1-hour introductory special. To request more info on consulting services, email Marty at contact@johnmartinkeith.com.

In this episode we talk about:

*Networking with composers.
*Joining different composer organizations to meet people in your field.
*You have to become a part of that community.
*Mentors get you in the door but you have to be able to do the work.
*Ask mentors to help open doors for you.
*Joy Music House is her production company that does score producing for tv/film.
*Orchestrating means taking someone’s midi string files and breaking them out to make sure every note is arranged correctly for a live orchestra.
*Composing means creating your own arrangements.
*Arranging means taking a concept or music and adding elements or changing things around to complement the picture.
*How production companies get to know our work.
*How to market yourself on social media.
*If you cold call anyone, be thoughtful about how you reach out.  Do your research.
*Be careful how you represent yourself.
*Ask “how can I help you?”
*If you’re good, you’re going to find work.
*Get someone to check your work.
*When you make mistakes, take ownership and say “I’m sorry.”
*Be persistent but polite.
*https://www.joymusichouse.com/

Catherine Joy - Music For Media

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 multi-award winning documentary The Augmentation of Douglas Engelbart (now streaming on Amazon Prime), the supernatural thriller The Parish and documentary Naughty Books which features narration by Aisha Tyler and Allison Tolman and premieres at Cinequest Film festival, March 2020. 

Catherine is the founder and CEO of Joy Music House, a full service score production company. She is also the Vice President for the Alliance for Women Film Composers.

Catherine has scored a number of series, starting with Capitol Hill which began on youtube and is now televised throughout Canada and Europe. More recently she scored the sci-fi dramady Abby and Tabby Alone in the Desert (now streaming on Seed and Spark) the documentary series Women of the Island, and No Matter What, which released on youtube September 2019. She contributed additional arrangements on the Emmy-award-winning Netflix doc series Wild Wild Country. Most recently Catherine worked on the History Channel 3 night miniseries event WASHINGTON, premiering Feb 16, 2020. Catherine also lead Joy Music House team in score producing Homecoming Season 2. 

Catherine is currently scoring the video games The Endless Mission and Beyond Blue. She is also working on a Ballet in collaboration with choreographer Rival Tribe which will premiere end of 2020.

Catherine & Joy Music House worked on notable feature projects. Catherine score supervised and orchestrated on Minari which one the Grand Jury and Audience award at Sundance 2020 along with the emmy-nominated scores RBG and Love, Gilda. She also score supervised the HBO documentary At The Heart of Gold and the feature Son of The South executive produced by Spike Lee and directed by his long-time editor Barry Alexander Brown. Catherine was also the orchestrator on the animated series High Guardian Spice, set for release in 2020. 

She 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 and plays many instruments including violin, piano, and guitar.