Catherine Joly was born at Belfort; neither the English nor the French Wikipedia article gives a birth date. She took a unanimous first prize for piano at the Nancy conservatoire at fifteen, then studied at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris in the class of Lucette Descaves and then of Reine Gianoli, taking first prizes in both piano and chamber music, and also worked with Jean Hubeau and Annie d’Arco. She holds the concert performer’s diploma of the École normale de musique de Paris.

She was a prizewinner at Épinal in 1975, took the UFAM grand prize for chamber music in Paris and a prize at the Viotti competition in Vercelli in 1979, was distinguished at the Mai Musical in Bordeaux in 1980 and took the silver medal at the Maria Canals competition in Barcelona the same year, as well as a distinction at the Busoni competition in Bolzano. She has been a soloist for Radio France since 1978 and has appeared for the Cziffra and Menuhin foundations since 1981, playing as soloist and chamber musician in France, Switzerland and Germany, including at the Festival Estival de Paris, the Mai Musical de Bordeaux and the Besançon international festival. She is a signatory of the Manifesto of the 343.

Joly’s recorded work is built around French repertoire that is thinly represented elsewhere on disc: the piano music of Reynaldo Hahn and of Stephen Heller for the Accord label, and Vincent d’Indy’s Grande Sonate together with the Helvetia pieces for Cybelia. All three composers sit at the edge of the standard catalogue, and the recordings function as advocacy as much as performance.

Her training places her in a direct French line, through Lucette Descaves and Reine Gianoli at the Paris Conservatoire and additional work with Jean Hubeau and Annie d’Arco, and her career has been correspondingly centred on French institutions, chiefly Radio France and the Cziffra and Menuhin foundations. No critical assessment of her playing was found among the sources consulted, and nothing is asserted here about her interpretive reputation or her influence on other players.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Joly
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Joly