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On October 28, 2022, Molly Joyce, an artist motivated by and through and because of disability, an artist with “serene power” (The New York Times)—one of the “most versatile, prolific, and intriguing composers working under the vast new-music dome” (The Washington Post)—releases her new work, Perspective, on New Amsterdam Records. At the age of seven, Joyce’s left hand was nearly amputated in a car accident. After two decades of rejecting the label, Joyce now proudly identifies as disabled, using her impaired left hand to play her vintage toy organ—an instrument seemingly custom-built for her impairment—with “superb effect” (The Wire). On Perspective, Joyce moves beyond her own disability to highlight voices of the wider disabled community—both literally and figuratively. 

“Perspective is an ongoing project featuring disabled participants who respond to what access, care, interdependence, and more means to them,” says Joyce. “Judith Heumann, the legendary disability activist known for her role in the Academy Award-nominated documentary Crip Camp and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), once asked me why I refer to my impaired left hand as ‘weak.’ This question struck me personally and almost politically, as it became clear that I was categorizing my disability within narrow definitions of what weakness can and should be.” 

Heumann’s question inspired Perspective, Joyce’s multidisciplinary work featuring 47 disabled interviewees, worldwide, whose impairments range from physical to visual to intellectual to auditory, and whose backgrounds span race, class, gender, religion, and sexuality—veterans, activists, academics, pageant models, and others. On Perspective, Joyce asks her disability community numerous questions: “What is weakness for you?” “What is access for you?” and other queries related to their disabilities. 

“I wondered if rethinking ‘weakness’ might foster a broader understanding of the term, of related terms, and of terms central to disability culture,” says Joyce. “The aim was to highlight the diversity and plurality of the disability community and, hopefully, reframe collective perceptions about disability.” The composer recorded the disabled interviewees’ responses and underscored the audio with her voice and vintage toy organ. But unlike most albums, Perspective is more than an aural experience. In an effort to be all-inclusive, to highlight multisensory accessibility, the new piece is designed to be listened to alongside a series of open-caption videos. 

Before Perspective, Joyce’s work explored her relationship with disability, though she’d been longing to widen her focus, to engage her community. “For a long time, I wondered how to authentically highlight voices and viewpoints of the disability community, an incredibly diverse yet unified identity, and experience,” says Molly Joyce. “I hope Perspective offers singular insights into these outlooks by valuing the disabled experience as one all can learn from and engage with.”