Dr. Joy Yang is a skilled pianist and thereminist, who recently graduated from the University of Illinois with her doctorate in jazz performance. Excited by the prospect of continuously expanding and building a community here in Champaign-Urbana, Yang founded an organization, the Interdisciplinary Institute, that embodies community.
Someone whose name is very fitting, Joy Yang is joyful, warm, inviting, and open. She grew up with a lot of cultural influences, especially since she moved around as a child. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Yang bounced between China and South Africa, though she mostly settled in Australia after she was seven — her identity and interests were shaped throughout this experience. She started to play piano at the age of four, but held no interest in pursuing piano professionally. In fact, she had pursued many different art forms from a young age, such as dancing, acting, singing, and fashion design. “I started tap dancing at three, ballet at four and I kept doing ballet until the age of 11,” she told me. While she no longer pursues dance as seriously as she once had when she was a child, Yang notes that she continues to dance for fun in her free time.
At 12, Yang performed piano at the Sydney Opera House, which “boosted [her] confidence quite a bit as a child.” She only began to seriously think about the piano at the age of 16 when she found herself “truly loving the piano” with a good teacher at hand. From there she actively dedicated her time and efforts to pursuing the instrument. While initially trying to balance various pursuits such as acting and teaching —even originally pursuing her Bachelor’s in theatre and music performance and having a degree in education — Yang realized that piano requires a large amount of time and dedication. To pursue it seriously, she refocused her time and energy to practice and commit to the piano and later, the theremin.
The theremin is an electronic musical instrument with two antennas that the player can control — the frequency is played with one hand and volume with the other. Doing so will send electric signals through a loudspeaker. Yang’s interest in the theremin came later after watching a performance by Clara Rockmore, and first witnessing the performance Yang recalled “not believing was real.” She later got to play the theremin after mentioning it to a professor who coincidentally had one. From there she continued to develop her interest and love for the instrument. Playing the theremin had brought a new experience for the classically trained musician. “I’ve been doing piano for a very long time — 25 years now — but with the theremin, there are different traditions of playing. You can play it in a more classical way or a more modern way. You can play it super precise[ly] like a violin, or you can [be] more gesture-like, like a synthesizer. I do a combination of both, but I had my methods and gestures ready ‘cause I’ve got perfect pitch and I developed a way that was intuitive to me and comfortable for my body.” In a truly interdisciplinary collaboration, Yang hopes to incorporate belly dancing into her future performances as she, through her current theremin gigs, realizes that “like a singer, the way we show up visually is super important in our communication. I communicate the energy through my body and visuals and the energy of the show, not just the sound. That way people who can see it can also feel it.”
When Yang graduated, finding a job that involved interdisciplinary improvisation and collaboration drawing together all of her interests and skills was hard. The few programs and places that talked about interdisciplinary improvisation were all in Germany.
In November 2023 she founded the Interdisciplinary Institute, a “start-up company that is a space and a place that is focused on promoting, conducting, and educating people about STEAM research (which is STEM + ARTS)” whose vision is “about bringing the bright people together.” It was a project to form her dream job. Yang used her doctoral dissertation, “An Autoethnographic Approach to Interdisciplinary Improvisation,” as the foundation of the institution. She explained:
It’s how I approach improvising with different disciplines like music, art, dance, science and engineering, literature, and film from my own unique position as someone who is a liminal third culture kid and being an Asian woman. It goes into a lot more detail about my identity and my experiences but the three main principles that we found for interdisciplinary collaboration were communication, openness, and empathy. It’s value-based collaboration.
Collaboration is a key component in the Interdisciplinary Institute as it brings people of different genres and techniques together to perform and experiment. It’s a uniting factor that connects various experiences and perspectives to create a unique sound and performance. Yang mentioned that she “view[s] education similar to self-learning. We can learn from each other. It’s collaborative and self-reflective.” Her aspirations for the institute are to create a variety of performances and interconnect the community, to “inspire other people to want to pursue their dreams or create the space or the project they want to see.” Yang hopes that the institute will not only provide a bridge between the U of I and the community, but also build more global opportunities and connections. With the intermix of different media, Yang notes that the institute is a “big step” in bringing STEAM and innovation into the community. She is excited to see how the various performances will change C-U.
The institute has hosted a few lessons, and held events during Boneyard Arts Festival. Yang hopes to continue to grow and create more workshops and a variety of programs. “I hope to have workshops where people can learn to do each skill; for example 3-D laser design or how to blend someone’s engineering skills with music and then we’re going to form groups where people get to participate with other disciplines and create new performances. My goal with this is to have many interdisciplinary groups that are all unique.”
In terms of composing her music, Yang’s creative process is often done in collaboration with other artists, especially when composing her electronic music. “I work in collaboration with other artists, but I’m also able to compose my own written composition. They are in the jazz style with classical influence at times. These days I’m mostly writing in jazz style.”
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to watch Yang perform at the Gallery Art Bar. She performed songs off her album Kuroshio with Jason Finkleman; it was a haunting and beautiful performance that incorporated a fusion of different genres. From EDM, acoustic percussion, and theremin it was an encompassing musical experience. I recommend that if any readers have the opportunity to check out Yang’s theremin performances, they will enjoy an eclectic and experimental performance.
Yang, as a performer, has a few upcoming projects in the works. Her second album will be released in November; she’ll be performing that music at the Chicago Asian Jazz Festival, also this November. Find her music on YouTube; you can purchase the first album off her website.