Joy Hodges is a horn player and teacher in the Washington, DC area and is Second Horn of the Harrisburg Symphony in Pennsylvania. During the fall of 2025, Joy will be playing Second Horn in the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. From 2017-2019 she played Fourth Horn in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012-2016 she performed as Second Horn in the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach. Joy has been a member of the Vancouver Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Albany Symphony, and New Haven Symphony. She often performs with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra and is an extra musician with the Atlanta Symphony, The Metropolitan Opera, and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Joy spends her summers on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, and spent 10 years teaching at Bar Harbor Brass Week in Maine. In 2025 Joy taught at the Interharmony International Music Festival in Italy. She has also been on the faculties of Towson University in Maryland and St. Mary's University in San Antonio, TX, as well as being Guest Professor of Horn at the University of Georgia in 2014-2015, and Guest Professor of Horn at Shenandoah University in the fall of 2021.
Joy has a Master of Music in Orchestral Performance from Manhattan School of Music and a Bachelor of Music Education from The University of Georgia. Her teachers were Erik Ralske of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and Dr. Jean Martin-Williams at The University Of Georgia.
Joy performs on a Ricco Kühn W293 with a large bell and a Stork CMA 14 mouthpiece.
Photo by Rich Riggins
