A native Vermonter, Joanna Ross Hersey studied with Dan Perantoni at Arizona State University, received a Master of Music in tuba performance from the New England Conservatory of Music while studying with Chester Schmitz, and earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in tuba performance from the Hartt School.
After winning the position of Principal Tuba with the United States Coast Guard Band at the age of 19, Joanna performed throughout the country as a soloist and clinician. Joanna has played for three U.S. Presidents, performed at numerous state functions for visiting dignitaries, and has appeared on The Today Show and Good Morning America. In her freelance career she has performed with many artists, including Placido Domingo, Roberta Flack, Marilyn Horne, Arlo Guthrie, Michael Bolton, Lee Greenwood, Arturo Sandoval, and Jack Nicholson.
Joanna is a founding member of the Athena Brass Band, a group first created for the 2003 International Women’s Brass Conference. Since then, the band has performed at the 2006 and 2012 IWBC and been featured at the Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, Kentucky. As a member of the Alchemy Tuba-Euphonium Quartet, Joanna performs throughout North America and Europe. She can be heard on the group’s recordings Village Dances and Prelude and Groove. Alchemy is in residence each February at the Horn-Tuba Workshop in Jever, Germany, where the group performs recitals, gives master classes, and conducts ensembles.
Joanna’s solo album, O quam mirabilis, features music by women composers including Hildegard von Bingen and Libby Larson. Joanna’s research on brass history and women in 20th Century American music has been published in the International Tuba Euphonium Journal, the Historic Brass Society Journal, the North Carolina Music Educator’s Journal, and the Journal of Historical Research in Music Education.
Joanna is Associate Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
