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. 

Joyce 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 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).