Recently described in The Times as ‘the cream of the new generation’ and praised for playing with ‘strength, variety and beauty’, Joseph Middleton enjoys a busy and varied career as a chamber musician and accompanist.

Born in Gloucestershire, Joseph graduated with an MPhil from the University of Birmingham before studying piano at the Royal Academy of Music with Michael Dussek and Malcolm Martineau on an EMI Scholarship. Graduating with Distinction, he was also awarded the DipRAM, the Academy’s highest award for postgraduate study and was subsequently appointed the Hodgson Junior Fellow. On leaving the Academy, he began a residency as College Musician at Pembroke College Cambridge, was invited to be the inaugural pianist Samling Scholar, held a Junior Fellowship to the vocal faculty at the Royal College of Music and joined the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago as a staff accompanist, playing for the masterclasses of Matthias Goerne, Christoph Eschenbach and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

Joseph’s competition successes in the UK include the Accompaniment Prizes of the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition, Kathleen Ferrier Awards and Royal Over-Seas League Competition while in Germany he has won the Best Lied-Pianist Prize at the Internationaler Schubert-Wettbewerb LiedDuo 2009. Other awards include the Yamaha Birmingham Accompanist of the Year, Geoffrey Parsons Memorial Award and Wingate, Tillett Trust, MBF, Caird, AHRC and RAM Foundation Scholarships.

Joseph has given recitals with internationally established singers of the opera world as well as rising stars from the younger generation. Recent performances have seen him appear alongside Sir Thomas Allen, Ann Murray DBE, Joan Rodgers, Amanda Roocroft, Katarina Karnéus, Andrew Kennedy, Geraldine McGreevy, Toby Spence, Clara Mouriz, Robert Murray, Katherine Broderick, Sally Burgess, Sophie Bevan, Allan Clayton, Ronan Collett, Robin Tritschler, Anna Leese, Benedict Nelson, and Stephen Varcoe. Work with instrumentalists includes concerts with cellist Alexander Baillie, clarinettist Emma Johnson MBE and oboe player Nicholas Daniel. He has devised programmes for Wigmore Hall (‘Colours of Spain’ with Lucy Crowe, Clara Mouriz, Allan Clayton and Ronan Collett), King’s Place (2012 season for Samling residency), the National Portrait Gallery and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts.

He has appeared at festivals including the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Three Choirs, Norwich and Norfolk, Oxford Lieder and Ravinia (Chicago), as well as venues throughout Italy, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Germany, France and the USA. Joseph has made live broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 and gives frequent recitals at such venues as the Wigmore Hall, Royal Opera House, Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room, St. John’s, Smith Square, the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, Bristol’s Colston Hall and The Sage Gateshead. Highlights of the forthcoming season include making his debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, giving recitals with Sir Thomas Allen, Amanda Roocroft, Toby Spence, Sylvia Schwartz and Geraldine McGreevy and returning to Wigmore Hall with Robin Tritschler, Lucy Crowe, Clara Mouriz, Allan Clayton, Catherine Hopper and Ronan Collett. A CD of Spanish Songs with Clara Mouriz will be released on the new Sonimage Label in 2010.

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