Dr. Joy-Leilani Garbutt is an organist, musicologist, and an ardent advocate for gender-equity in the field of music. She is the co-founder of Boulanger Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting music composed by women through performance, education, and commissions. Her advocacy of women composers has been featured in The New York Times.
 
Joy-Leilani is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship and spent a year in France pursuing research on early 20th-century French organ music by female composers, particularly Joséphine Boulay, Mel Bonis, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Jeanne Demessieux, Marie-Véra Maixandeau, and Henriette Puig-Roget. She holds a Ph.D. in musicology from The Catholic University of America,
a Master of Education degree from The Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Master of Music in organ performance from Northwestern University, where she served as Organ Scholar for the Alice Millar Chapel. 
She has studied with Dr. Jeremy Filsell, Sophie-Veronique Cauchefer-Choplin, Douglas Cleveland, and Christa Rakich. 

Joy-Leilani maintains an active concert career, exclusively performing music by underrepresented composers. She has given solo organ recitals throughout the US, and internationally in France, India, Monaco, Norway, and Switzerland. 

She is based in San Francisco, California, where she is Director of Music at St. Luke's Episcopal Church and Associate Musician & Director of Girls' Choir at Grace Cathedral.