A large group of adults gather outside and eat ice cream treats.
Joyce Besch, M.M.

Joyce Besch, M.M.

Adjunct Instructor in Music
Bassoon
Department
Music
Office location

Rogers Fine Arts 103

Email
jbesch [at] NebrWesleyan.edu
Phone
Headshot of Joyce Besch, M.M.
Background

Joyce Besch currently holds the position of third bassoon/contrabassoon in Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra.  Joyce is also a member of the Nebraska Chamber Players and Bassoons Across Nebraska, and performs with the Omaha Symphony, Nebraska Symphony Chamber Orchestra, and Lincoln Municipal Band.  Before coming to Lincoln, Nebraska in 2006, Joyce was an active free-lance bassoonist in Toronto, Ontario.  There she held the second bassoon position with Niagara Symphony and performed with several area orchestras, including Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Windsor Symphony, and Oshawa-Durham Symphony.  One of her quirkier bassoon performances was playing “Happy Trails” on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor.  Joyce teaches bassoon at Nebraska Wesleyan University. She has given contrabassoon masterclasses at Ithaca College in New York and taught bassoon and aural skills at Olivet College in Michigan. 

Education

Joyce has studied bassoon with Laine Bryce and Carole Mason-Smith in St. Paul, MN, Yoshi Tominaga in Salzburg, Austria, and Linda Harwell in Baltimore, MD. She has received degrees from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota (B.A. Music Ed.) and from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University (M.M. Performance).