#5098, With Molly Joyce: "State Change"
Composer and performer Molly Joyce takes us on a journey through her 2025 album State Change, for voice and adaptive technology, which uses her own surgical records as musical lyrics.
State Change, a series of seven electro-acoustic tone poems, grew out of Joyce’s doctoral studies at the University of Virginia, where she began experimenting with adaptive music technology; some of these pieces started as class assignments. The work takes its lyrics from her own medical records – the clinical notes of seven surgeries in the wake of a car accident that nearly amputated her left hand- in lines like: “No function / No flexor / No extensor” and “In the wound / Paint and glass / Flesh and bone.” The documentation of the muscle, skin, and nerve grafts, along with the removing of pins and final revision surgery are set to music, with each tone poem using the date of the surgery as the title of the work, (Bandcamp liner notes).
Joyce uses the MUGIC device on State Change, which lets her shape clusters of sound without triggering stray pitches – along with vocoder, a lo-fi studio talkback mic, and electronics on her voice which shifts and flutters, sometimes with added harmonies. The last piece uses a KAiKU Music Glove, a touch-sensitive device worn on her left hand to trigger MIDI notes and samples, (Bandcamp liner notes). - Caryn Havlik
Program #5098, With Molly Joyce (First aired 1/21/26)
ARTIST: Molly Joyce
WORK: Body and Being [1:57]
RECORDING: Breaking and Entering
SOURCE: New Amsterdam Records
INFO: https://mollyjoyce.bandcamp.com/album/breaking-and-entering
ARTIST: Molly Joyce
WORK: August 6, 1999 [4:39]
RECORDING: State Change
SOURCE: FatCat Records' 130701 / Better Company Records
INFO: https://mollyjoyce.bandcamp.com/album/state-change
ARTIST: Molly Joyce
WORK: August 9, 1999 [5:45]
RECORDING: State Change
SOURCE: FatCat Records' 130701 / Better Company Records
INFO: https://mollyjoyce.bandcamp.com/album/state-change
ARTIST: Molly Joyce
WORK: August 13 + 16, 1999 [2:55]
RECORDING: State Change
SOURCE: FatCat Records' 130701 / Better Company Records
INFO: https://mollyjoyce.bandcamp.com/album/state-change
ARTIST: Molly Joyce
WORK: November 24, 1999 [5:19]
RECORDING: State Change
SOURCE: FatCat Records' 130701 / Better Company Records
INFO: https://mollyjoyce.bandcamp.com/album/state-change
ARTIST: Molly Joyce
WORK: April 19, 2000 [5:33]
RECORDING: State Change
SOURCE: FatCat Records' 130701 / Better Company Records
INFO: https://mollyjoyce.bandcamp.com/album/state-change
ARTIST: Molly Joyce
WORK: October 26, 2001 [1:57]
RECORDING: State Change
SOURCE: FatCat Records' 130701 / Better Company Records
INFO: https://mollyjoyce.bandcamp.com/album/state-change
ARTIST: Molly Joyce
WORK: July 27, 2007 [3:30]
RECORDING: State Change
SOURCE: FatCat Records' 130701 / Better Company Records
INFO: https://mollyjoyce.bandcamp.com/album/state-change
