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 and was also offered a Junior Fellowship to the vocal faculty at the Royal College of Music.

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, Katherine Broderick, Sally Burgess, Allan Clayton, Ronan Collett, Katarina Karnéus, Andrew Kennedy, Anna Leese, Clara Mouriz, Ann Murray DBE, Robert Murray, Benedict Nelson, Joan Rodgers, Amanda Roocroft and Stephen Varcoe. Work with instrumentalists includes concerts with cellist Alexander Baillie, clarinetist Emma Johnson CBE and oboe player Nicholas Daniel. He made his Wigmore Hall debut with Clara Mouriz in 2007 and has returned in following seasons for recitals with Catherine Hopper, Kate Valentine, Madeleine Shaw, Ben Johnson, Ronan Collett, Andrew Harper and Sir Thomas Allen. He has planned recitals at the hall with Lucy Crowe, Allan Clayton, Clara Mouriz, Catherine Hopper, Julia Sporsén and Ashok Klouda.

He has appeared at UK festivals including the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh Fringe (for the ROSL series), Three Choirs, Norwich and Norfolk and Oxford Lieder, as well as in Italy, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Germany and France. He made his North American debut with a series of concerts and radio broadcasts at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago during the summer of 2009, when he joined the staff of the Steans Institute and played for the masterclasses of Matthias Goerne, Christoph Eschenbach and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. 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. A CD of Spanish Songs with Clara Mouriz will be released on the new Sonimage Label late in 2009.

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