About the Composer:
Joanna Moutouama is a Vancouver-based composer, guitarist, and jazz dancer who loves multi-faceted music projects. She is interested in how interdisciplinary exploration of movement and visual stimulation can affect storytelling and auditory experiences. These interests have led her to projects like her commission from the May Festival, where she collaborated with a deaf ASL signer/dancer to act out the text for Deaf audiences in her choral premiere, Untamed. She also created two short films with electronic and acoustic music, such as Light Pollution in a Living Room or Breakdown to Grow, which was part of her interdisciplinary concert and exhibition she curated in collaboration with gardeners, birders, technicians, vocalists, and performers. Joanna’s curiosity constantly leads her to try to expand these experiences.
Interdisciplinary commission: Untamed
Joanna was commissioned by the May Festival to write a choral piece for their spring 2023 Season called “25 for 25: A New Time for Choral Music.” She was paired with the Young Professional Choral Collective (YPCC) and collaborated with conductor Danielle Cozart-Steele to create “Untamed”, a choral project aimed at creating a meaningful concert experience for the deaf community. Joanna’s work includes a soloist, ASL interpreter/dancer, SATB choir, and ensemble, and was premiered on March, 19th in Cincinnati by YPCC. Learn about the commission and listen to the work below!
Following the premiere of “Untamed”, Joanna’s work was also performed by Young Professional Choral Collective on March 22nd for their spring concert cycle called, “Vision and Voice.” This concert cycle featured the arts organization, “Visionaries + Voices”, which provides creative, professional, and educational opportunities for adults with disabilities. All of the music programmed for the concert focused on visionary musicians and poets, who explored the boundaries of art, depth of human spirit, and challenged social ideas and ideals. Joanna’s piece, “Untamed”, was included in the program as an addition to this conversation of vision and voice through her efforts centered around creating a meaningful concert experience for deaf audience members in attendance at the concert.
Untamed
Performers: Young Professional Choral Collective (YPCC), conductor and artistic director Danielle Cozart-Steele, Assistant Director Krista Cornish Scott, ASL interpreter/dancer Arriana Bedgood, pianist Shiloh Roby. Performed as part of the May Festival’s 25 for 25 showcase concert, 2023.
Jaded Chrysocolla
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to see music through the eyes of a person with synesthesia? For this work, Joanna created color visuals that portray what colors she sees in each section of her electric guitar work, “Jaded Chrysocolla.” Take a few minutes to sit, breathe, and experience the colors and music.
Written for guitarist Will Schmid Premiered at Berlin, Minneapolis, Minnesota by Will Schmid. Recorded by Joanna McDonald. Visuals by Joanna McDonald. Copyright 2025, all rights reserved.
Bending Sound Streams
You have entered into a stream of sound that has been playing for ages. You dip into the flow, and its current takes you along. With it come bends and turns you might not expect from an old stream. Inevitably, you must leave the bending sound stream, yet still it continues on without you.
Premiered at Rice University, 2024 as part of Joanna’s Immersive Ecosystem Inspired Exhibit and Concert. Composed, performed, recorded, and produced by Joanna McDonald. Graphic Design by Joanna McDonald. Copyright 2025, all rights reserved.
Light Pollution in a Living Room
In this short film, Joanna tries to represent the overwhelming power of man-made lights over naturally produced lights and healthy levels of darkness at night in a microcosm: a living room. She compares natural lights and man-made lights in a dark living room with household items, demonstrating how strong man-made lights are and how these man-made lights affect humans not just on a large scale, but also on a small scale, even in our own homes with our purchased light-producing devices. (2025)
Blown Across
In this second short film, Joanna attempts to contextualize a poem not just only through music, but through movement and acting. Amy Lowell, in her poem included in the film, communicates that while dreams and hopes can be the source of what motivates one forward, they also are seemingly just out of grasp. Lowell seems to reconcile this tension at the end of the poem by stating that what makes a dream or hope appealing is that it really is always just out of reach, making it so that one must always be proactive in chasing it.
Concert Curation
Immersive Ecosystem Inspired Exhibit and Concert
Joanna curated an exhibit and concert experience with a team of gardeners, birders, vocalists, performers, and technicians that began with an outdoor courtyard exhibit, then moved indoors for multimedia performances. Each audience member was greeted with a unique butterfly lapel pin and a calming drone upon entering the courtyard, then they explored 5 different nature exhibit tables. Afterwards, they were guided inside for the multimedia music portion of the evening. Click the link below to walk through the evening! (2024)
Breakdown to Grow
This piece was created as part of The Immersive Ecosystem Inspired Exhibit and Concert and the first movement, Decomposing, was a part of the Electric LaTex festival in 2023. It is for mixed-media and string quartet, where Joanna attempts to demonstrate the natural processes of decomposition and rebirth in plants, as well as in personal growth. The first movement “Decomposing” is a fixed media and video piece created from recorded sounds of the second movement “Blossoming Thirds”, which is for string quartet+video.
Decomposing, movement 1
Blossoming Thirds, movement 2
Performers: Will Joseloff, Tom Shamrakov, Camille Cole, Eamon Riley, 2024.
Commission from Rice University
On May 4th, 2024, Rice University conducted its 111th Commencement ceremony and commissioned Joanna to write a fanfare to celebrate the graduating class! To listen to the jazzy, sassy version of her fanfare called “Last Hurrah” below.
Last Hurrah
Virtual Guitar Orchestra (VGO) Commission
In the fall of 2022, Joanna was commissioned by The Augustine Foundation and the Virtual Guitar Orchestra (VGO) to write a work for high school guitar students across the U.S as a part of VGO’s 2021-2022 season. During the process, Joanna was privileged to work with classical guitar soloist Bokyung Byun. View the work below or click on the link to view Joanna’s work, as well as other works from VGO’s 2021-2022 season!
Guitars in the Garden
Community Activities
Instrument “Petting Zoo”
From 2022-2023, Joanna partnered with The bART Center for Music to introduce children to music and the classical guitar through what The bART calls an, “instrument petting zoo.”
Longitude Sound Bytes Podcast (LSBP)
Joanna has recently been working with podcast producer and director, Ipek Martinez, to co-create podcast topics and interviews for Martinez’ podcast, “Longitude Sound Bytes.” Joanna has written the theme music for several of the podcast episodes and has recorded an episode, which is shown here. In the episode, she and Dr. Nina Kraus from Northwestern University discuss noise and its physiological and emotional effects on humans.
Listen to Other Works From Joanna
Peace
Meaningful Words
A Walk in the Dark
Funky Kernel
For scores or questions: joannamoutoutama@gmail.com
Photo Credits: Karis Lai Photography
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