Joy Yamaguchi is a Japanese-American violinist, educator, and entrepreneur with a passion for building community. Growing up in the California Central Coast, Joy started violin at the age of eight through the Suzuki Violin Method and performed her first solo as a young artist with the Carmel Bach Festival. Since then, she has performed across the Americas, Europe, and Asia in orchestral, chamber, and solo settings with artists ranging from classical violin soloist Stefan Jackiw to the Queen of Hiphop, Ms. Lauryn Hill. 

As an educator, Joy is dedicated to ensuring access to high quality music education for students of all backgrounds. Through her roles as an instructor at Front Range Community College (FRCC) Westminster and as a teaching artist with organizations such as Colorado Symphony's Denver Young Artists Orchestra, Rocky Ridge Music Center, and El Sistema Colorado, she empowers students to reach their musical potential while broadening their perception of their own capabilities. Joy has led masterclasses with organizations across the United States, Chile, Trinidad and Tobago, and Honduras, and has presented on topics at the intersection of pedagogy and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access at the National American String Teachers Association Conference (ASTA), Colorado American String Teachers Association, the National Conservatory of Bolivia, El Sistema Guatemala, University of Colorado–Boulder’s College for Teaching and Learning, and the Global Leaders Institute. She has received awards including the Center for Teaching and Learning Graduate Teacher Fellowship, the GSPG Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award, the Best Will Teach Silver Award, and the Hildegard Behrens Foundation's Social Impact Award. 

Joy transforms innovative ideas into impactful programs while centering community voice, collaboration, and creativity. In 2020, she served on a team of arts leaders who developed and co-launched the Alliance for Music Education Equity (AMEE) with the Colorado Symphony. Since its launch, AMEE has served Denver music non-profits with the purpose of creating a more equitable music education scene through collective impact. Since then, Joy founded her own initiative, Our Music Theory (OMT), a program that engages elementary string players in music theory through creative composition and improvisation activities. Developed to fill a curricular void she noticed while a teaching artist, the program fosters an early connection between music theory fundamentals and the development of instrumental skills, musical interpretation, and student voice. Since its launch at El Sistema Colorado in 2023, this program has reached 100+ elementary string players, resulting in unique and oftentimes silly short student compositions, and elevated organizational standards of musical excellence and student engagement. The program is set to launch in several music organizations nationally in 2024. 

Joy received a Bachelor of Music from the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, where she was a student of Sally O'Reilly, and a Masters degree from Florida State University, where she was a graduate assistant to Dr. Benjamin Sung. Joy holds a certificate in Social Entrepreneurship, Cultural Agency, Policy Leadership, Teaching Artistry, and Organizational Management from the Global Leaders Institute as one of 50 arts leaders internationally selected for its 2019-2020 cohort. Currently, Joy works for Grammy-award winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird as a manager for the Blackbird Creative Lab. While a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado–Boulder, Joy is also a graduate teaching assistant to founding second violinist of the Takács Quartet, Károly Schranz. Her multifaceted research encompasses the application of bell hooks’ pedagogical framework to music education, methods of engaging elementary string players in music theory through creative composition and improvisation, and the life and works of Nobu Kōda, a prolific woman composer of Meiji-era Japan whose works have long been excluded from the classical canon.