Joy Guidry – Radical Acceptance

The program “Radical Acceptance” is a journey into the creative cosmos of Joy Guidry, born in Houston, Texas, in 1995. This multi-part piece is in some ways an aesthetic study of self-perception and the perception of others – and how it feels to want and need to accept all these impressions of the world within oneself and outside. Guidry studied bassoon, but she* is far more than just a virtuoso instrumentalist*. For her*, composing is always also coagulated improvisation and improvising in turn liquefied composition. At the same time, “Radical Acceptance” is the disclosure of manifold injuries and threats for her* as a black, non-binary trans person who wants to communicate herself to the public with this piece – and with a heterogeneous ambiguity as only music is able to reveal. In the parts, composition and improvisation intermingle, the analog and the digital suspend the fixed classifications of genres and genres to make it impossible for the audience, as well as Guidry’s instrumentalists, to locate themselves aesthetically within the music. “‘Radical Acceptance’ is also a personal practice,” Guidry says. “It doesn’t mean that there are no more hard times for me. But times of warmth and comfort are much more present these days. Learning to love my whole self unconditionally will be a lifelong journey. At the same time, I am just so happy to be where I am today. For me, that means radical acceptance.”