Pat Joslyn began her orchestral career on the stage as a French horn player. Her big break came in 1982 when she was hired to play at EPCOT part of the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. “From that one engagement I started getting tons of engagements in Orlando.” By 1984 Joslyn had moved to Orlando and was managing the Brevard Symphony on top of playing in the orchestra.
The position sparked her interest in orchestra building. Joslyn set her sights on becoming an artistic administrator, “that was the dream job. You get to program concerts, outside of playing it’s about the next best fun job that there is.” For the next two decades, Joslyn split her professional time between freelancing, managing, and playing in the Brevard Symphony and the Orlando Philharmonic. Joslyn joined the Sarasota Orchestra as personnel manager in 2000 and quickly moved up the administrative ranks to operations manager and a few years later to vice president of artistic administration.
In 2017 she moved across the country to be closer to her grandchildren and joined the TSO’s administration team. “I went to my first TSO rehearsal and the thing that jumped out to me was how fantastic Lauren Roth was as concertmaster. I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, she’s awesome. That was a really powerful moment and then meeting José Luis and starting to work with him was such a wonderful experience because he was so collaborative. He was just so open to my programming ideas.”
Joslyn’s leadership philosophy has always been people first. “My goal is to make the organizations that I work for better than I found them. To do that you have to lift people up; the closer I get to retirement the stronger I feel about lifting people and teaching them so that they can do without me. I feel that throughout my career I was an engine that drove growth and change and improvement. I focused on making life better for the musicians who are playing, and I look back on the orchestras I’ve been a part of with a lot of pride and love because I love the people there and I have three places to call home.”
Handling the COVID-19 Pandemic proved to be one of the greatest challenges of Joslyn’s career. “Without a doubt the pandemic was the biggest challenge of my whole career. For a business that is about gathering and making sound together and creating shared experiences, social distancing was extremely challenging. We did the best that we could, but it was like navigating in the dark, because there was so many unknowns.” But out of that great challenge came one of Joslyn’s proudest achievements, “one of my biggest things I’m proud of is getting the TSO choir back together and hiring chorus director Marcela Molina after the pandemic. That was a huge effort.”
“Pat’s relationship with music won’t end here. She’s sharing her knowledge with her beloved grandchildren and teaching the next generation of musical Joslyns. Her passion for cultivating a love of music in young people is inspiring. Remembering her steadfast commitment to bringing out the best in everyone she worked with has made me a better parent. Pat does everything with love. We can’t wait to see where that love leads her next!”
– Lori Joslyn
During retirement Joslyn is most looking forward to spending time with her grandchildren. “I am looking forward to being able to go to my grandkids concerts and hear them and support them.” She’s also looking forward to exploring new non-musical hobbies but plans on continuing to attend concerts when she can.
In honor of Joslyn’s retirement TSO, the Brevard Symphony and the Sarasota Orchestra commissioned Peter Boyer to compose Horizons. Read more about the commission.
