Jóia Findeis is a rising senior at Oberlin Conservatory, studying viola performance under Peter Slowik and historical performance under Edwin Huizinga. Jóia hails from Belmont, MA; their past teachers include Deborah Boykan and Karen Stokke. An avid performer of all genres, Jóia enjoys commissioning and performing contemporary works and reviving pieces from bygone eras as a member of Oberlin's Historical Performance Department and baroque ensembles. Jóia has sat as assistant principal and section viola in the Oberlin Orchestras and Contemporary Music Ensembles. Recent honors include two Carnegie Hall performances as a member of the Oberlin Orchestra: a December 2022 performance for the United Nations General Assembly featuring a program of Hailstork's Fanfare on Amazing Grace, Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and a January 2023 tour, featuring Oberlin alum R. Nathaniel Dett's oratorio The Ordering of Moses. Jóia’s previous summer festival engagements include the Harpa International Music Academy in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. When Jóia is not playing viola, they can be found exploring the great outdoors, dreaming about their next culinary adventure, and enjoying the small things in life. Jóia is simply happy to be here.

Jóia is the recipient of the Chautauqua Women's Club CWC "Morton and Natalie Abramson Scholarship for Violin, Viola, Cello”, the George E. and Susan Moran Murphy Scholarship, and the Chautauqua Scholarship.