Joanne S. Na is a Korean-American composer, based in Vancouver, Canada. She endeavors to create music that evokes human emotions, experiences, and places, and to share positive energy and hope through her music. Her output encompasses a diverse range of works including music for instrumental solo, voice, chamber ensemble, and orchestra.
Her compositions were featured in the Vancouver Pro Musica Sonic Boom Festival (2024), West Coast Student Composers Symposium (2024), University of Michigan's Annual Organ Conference (2023), Pacific Chamber Orchestra's Dream American Workshop (2022), and the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium (2021). She has received several awards including the NAfME Student Composers Competition (2021), Seoul Grand Philharmonic Orchestra Composers Award (2020), and Hwaum Project Academy Call for Scores (2019). She has worked with prominent artists and ensembles including Grammy-winning soprano Estelí Gomez, soprano Arwen Myers, cellist Arlen Hlusko, clarinetist Wonkak Kim and pianist Eunhye Grace Choi, 4X5 Piano Duo (Benjamin Krause & Christina Giuca), Delgani String Quartet, Kenari Quartet, Saxophilia Saxophone Quartet, Hwaum Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Chamber Orchestra, Seoul Grand Philharmonic Orchestra, Rutgers Symphony Orchestra, University of Oregon Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
As an educator, she taught several undergraduate courses at the University of Oregon, including Composition I and Notation & Engraving course. She also had private students outside the university, teaching piano, composition, and music theory in both the United States and South Korea. During the 2022-2023 academic year, she was appointed as a lecturer for music history courses at Sangmyung University in Seoul.
Currently, she is pursuing her doctorate at the University of British Columbia with the support of a Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship, studying with Dorothy Chang and Keith Hamel, and serving as a coach for Contemporary Players Ensemble. She earned her Bachelor of Music with a summa cum laude from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, where she studied with Scott Ordway, Charles Fussell, and Vadim Neselovskyi. She holds a Masters of Music from the University of Oregon where she studied with Robert Kyr and David Crumb. She was a Graduate Teaching Fellow in Composition and received an Outstanding Graduate Scholar Award in 2021. She also worked as a Symposium Coordinator at the 2021 Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium.